Long before your child has learned to form a decent sentence, she’s probably learned to warble to words from the latest pop song.  Kids are universally attracted to music - think your 1 year old nodding his head in time to the beat of a song.

Music is more than just fun and games.  The Mozart Effect was discovered when participants in studies showed improvement in memory and thinking, when they were exposed to Mozart’s music. 

No age is too young to begin introducing your child to music.  Here are a few tips to get you started.

PreSchool Music Activities

• Basic music games can start with simple shakers. Fill small bottles with a variety of fillers like sand, rice, dried beans, popcorn kernels, paper clips, and peas and use them to make a variety of sounds that you can use for accompaniment as you sing songs together.
• Play pop music, and dance with her. Use props like scarves and streamers.
• Sing with your child, and often.  Sing in the car, in the bath. Sing a lullaby before bedtime.
• Sing songs that have lots of sounds instead of actual words, like Old Mac Donald.
• Experiment with the Mozart Effect.  Play classical music while she is involved in painting or some other creative activity or when she’s trying to solve a puzzle.  Notice any changes?
• Show her the difference between high and low notes as you sing. If you sing a high note, she has to touch her head. When you sing a low note, she has to touch her knees.  Or she has to stand up or sit down whenever there is a change in note.  This also teaches her to concentrate and listen.
• Use kitchen utensils and other objects as musical instruments.  Steel spoons, glass bowls, tins - these can all be used to create a variety of musical sounds.  Listen to the difference in sound in each one.
• Sew on jingle bells to each finger of her mitten or glove.  Now she gets to create music every time she moves her arms to the beat!
• Use plenty of actions in your songs and counting rhymes. 
• Let her look for similarities in the songs she knows – for instance, the Alphabet song and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  Ask her if she knows other songs that have the same tune, or sound similar.
• Use songs for chores – “This is the way we set the table” sung to “Here we go around the Mulberry Bush.”
• Use songs to teach.
• Play a game of musical hide and seek.  Send your child out of the room and hide a toy in the room.  When she gets back in the room she has to look for the toy, while you sing a song to provide her clues.  When she comes near the toy, you sing loudly. When she moves away from the toy, you sing softly.  This also increases her ability to concentrate.
• Here’s a site that’s great fun. It has options for her to create her own music merely by selecting certain keys.  Great fun for preschoolers, and easy too!

Play on, and keep smiling!