Using Music and Sound for Enrichment in the Early Years

Many studies show that exposing children to music early on can greatly improve cognitive skills and abilities.  Even in the womb, babies are exposed to the likes of Mozart, Brahms, and even John Coltrane.  Music can enrich your child’s life in many ways.  Use some of the following ideas to engage your child with the power of music.

Let Them Experiment with Sound

If you can handle lots of noise, try getting out various pots, pans, and storage containers.  Allow your child to use different implements such as spoons (metal and wooden), spatulas, and pens and pencils to discover different sounds.  Connections will be made in your child’s developing brain, so let them bang the afternoon away.  Earplugs are certainly optional.

Make Instruments at Home

Perhaps the idea of letting the kiddos bang on pots and pans is a little too out there for you.  If this is the case, there are other options that use common household items to make fun instruments at home.  Take empty 16 or 20 ounce plastic bottles and fill them with beans, rice, pasta, or anything else that will shake and rattle.  The different sizes, weights, and shapes of the contents will deliver distinctive sounds. 

Expose Children to Multiple Genres

While many pop tunes these days may serve to over-stimulate young ears, there are so many genres worth exploring when it comes to your child.  Classical music is obviously a good place to start and can greatly affect a child’s mood.  Jazz is also purportedly great at helping to establish neural pathways and has been shown to enhance and assist in mathematical aptitude.  Ethnic music from around the world can also deliver unique sounds that your child may not experience on a regular basis.

Affordable Instrument

If you feel like purchasing instruments for your child to experiment with, go for inexpensive versions, especially when they are very young.  Big box stores often have value-priced toy aisles that feature affordable drums, guitars, and keyboards that are usually thirty dollars or less.  Thrift stores can be great places to find bargains on actual instruments.  However, you may want to save these items until the little ones are old enough to treat them well. 

This post was contributed by Courtney Phillips, who writes about accredited homeschools

She welcomes your feedback at CourtneyPhillips80 at gmail.com

 

Comments

[Mandi]

Music is a wonderful way for children to learn. I love to see children playing with musical instruments

[need cash]

I will probably let my baby learn some musical instruments when he is young enough to play those instruments because if I am going to let him play some musical instruments now, he might eat them.