Incorporating Child-Led Learning into Music Practice
When we partner up with children in their education and collaborate with them to incorporate their own interests, practicing music becomes more than just something we must do, it becomes a fulfilling creative endeavor.
When kids start music lessons, they are usually very excited to practice at home! Everything is fresh and new and the instrument is almost like a special new toy. But then after a while, the child begins to realize that doing this "thing" is hard work and suddenly it doesn't have the same novelty as it did in the beginning.
Cue the power struggles, frustration, and tantrums that all stem from a disconnection between what the child wants and what the parent wants.
Child-led learning is when we follow our children's interests and support their passions for optimal self-motivated learning. But of course, there are many things that we want our children to learn like math, science, literacy, and perhaps a musical instrument.
So what are we to do...follow our child's passions like dinosaurs, minecraft, and legos or teach them the things they need to know?
What if I told you there was a third way...
Perhaps, we could combine the two and create experiences for the child to learn flute (or those core subjects) through the lens of their own unique passion.
Because, as Julie Bogart says in her book The Brave Learner,
"You can learn everything through anything!"
Let's say your little one loves princesses and only thinks about that all day. For music practice at home, you might dress up and play flute inside the castle that you built out of cardboard boxes.
Or if your child is interested in birds, you might find some flute music where the flute represents the bird. You could learn to identify the bird calls of various species and then compose your own birdsongs. You could take your binoculars outside, do some bird watching, and then play to the birds.
Or if the passion is video games, maybe you find some music theory apps with note reading and ear training games. Or download Acapella or Soundtrap and your child could record themselves playing and learn about video editing, sound engineering and music production.
If your child loves to swim…practice in the pool!
When we partner up with children in their education and collaborate with them (instead of forcing our adult agenda on them), the resistance fades and makes way for passion. With this approach, education is more than just things we must learn, it becomes a fulfilling creative endeavor.
5 Fun Music Literacy Activities
Learning to read music is hard work, but it can also be so much fun! Try these creative, hands-on games to spice up the way you practice note reading at home.
Learning to read music is hard work, but it can also be so much fun! Try these creative, hands-on games at home to spice up the way you practice note reading.
1. “I Spy” Notes & Symbols
“I spy with my little eye... a quarter note, a crescendo, a barline, the note B!”
This is such a fun way to explore musical notation and identify notes and symbols. Play with a magnifying glass to really feel like a musical detective! Little gems or stones are great to cover each thing that you find and also makes it easy to count and compare.
2. Note Match Game
You can find treble clef sticky-notes online, as well as regular colored post-it notes.
Draw 3 or 4 notes on each of the musical staff sticky-notes (keep it in the range of whatever your child is currently learning). Draw the matching letters on regular colored sticky-notes.
Mix them up and match the letters to the notes on the staff!
Play each one on your instrument as you go, and then put them all together to make a song at the end!
Don’t forget to switch roles too! Kids then draw the notes and make the cards for parents to match.
3. Melodic Contour Tracing
This is such a fun activity to do with pipe-cleaners, as they are easy to bend and turn, following the direction of the music. You can also use yarn, string, or ribbon.
Melodic tracing allows kids to visually see the range of the song and locate the highest and lowest notes. It also shows ascending and descending lines as well as the overall shape of the phrases.
You can either print out a musical staff and plot some notes on your own or just use any sheet music that you have. Keep it simple and use a song with not too many notes.
At the end, you have a really cool shape to compare with other songs!
4. Musical Alphabet Words
The musical alphabet only has 7 letters (ABCDEFG), but there are still over 30 words that you can make!
To play the game, you will need musical staff paper and a pencil.
One person thinks of a word and draws the notes to spell that word on the staff. The other person has to guess the word and play it!
It could be an easy 3-letter word like “egg” or a big 7-letter word like “cabbage”! How many words can you make with the musical alphabet?
5. Note Stamping
Make a copy of your music so the original doesn’t get marked up and then let your child stamp out the notes! You can even print out a musical staff and identify each note before you begin. ⠀
What are some of your favorite ways to practice music reading…through play?