Here are a few important reasons shared by many teachers experiences in the past:

- Dancing to music and making music releases stress and energy.  

- Music gives children a way to express their emotions.  They're full of emotions they can't express, while dancing around to music and playing rhythm instruments leads to a great way to release their energies.  

- Music makes learning fun!  Add music to ANY preschool lesson and being creative too, leads children into exciting and fun ways to produce.   

- Learning music teaches listening skills.  It encourages the ability to listen and concentrate.  Songs encourage speech and auditory discrimination. Through music, children learn to hear tempos, dynamics, melodies listening for soft sounds, loud sounds, fast paced music and slow paced music.

- Music provides a pleasant background for regular activities.

- Music helps develop children’s language skills by singing songs, playing games, reciting poems and rhymes which help children develop those well needed early literacy skills.   Keeping a steady beat helps develop language. Clapping hands, stamping feet, and using rhythm instruments in time to music develops important pre-reading skills. Young children recognize words, sounds, rhythms, tones, and pitches long before they talk, sing, or dance. So, the more music the children have in their lives, the better they will speak and read.   

- Music helps develop children's self-esteem.  Music is a wonderful way to address the many needs of children because music is non-judgmental. There is no right or wrong.  Listening to different types of music nurtures self-esteem and encourages creativity, self-confidence, and curiosity.  

- Music helps develop children's math skills.   A simple song can include basic math skills such as counting, repeating patterns, and sequencing.  

- Music helps stimulate children's brain connections.  A recent study from the University of California found that music trains the brain for higher forms of thinking.  

            - Music and movement go together.  Children naturally respond to music.   ...

Note:  Please call the school to register and make sure the school has not cancelled the in-service

       School                           Date & Time       Certificate HRS      Topic                               Cost per Staff        

What are the Characteristics of Music?

       1.   Music captivates and maintains attention

       2.   Music stimulates and utilizes many parts of the brain

       3.   Music is easily adapted to, and can be reflective of, children’s abilities

       4.   Music structures time in a way that we can understand 

       5.   Music provides a meaningful, enjoyable context for repetition

       6.   Music provides a social context -- it sets up a safe, structured setting for verbal and nonverbal communication

       7.   Music is an effective memory aid

       8.   Music supports and encourages movement

       9.   Music taps into memories and emotions

    10.   Music and the silences within it provides nonverbal, immediate feedback

  11.  Music is success-oriented - children of all ability levels can participate

Group Auditory Games

          1. Each child is given a piece of paper with something on it like dog, horse, or pig.   They are instructed to listen carefully and follow the directions for coloring one area at a time like color the head blue or co;or the legs green.   The goals include manual dexterity, distinguishing colors, and following simple directions.

          2. Ear training with using different rhythm band instruments to distinguish notes alike, loud or soft, or how are they different.

          3. Ask the children to name the loudest and softest sounds they can think of like whisper “hello” or “clap loud.”  Be creative.

Between two and three years, children begin to internalize what you say to them. They pay more attention to directions and store them in their memory bank.  When you say the same thing to a three-year-old, they seem to reflect, "Oh, yes, I remember."  

Note: The ability to make instructions part of themselves makes discipline easier.

Threes are easier to live with. Threes have the language skills that let two-way communication become real conversation.  Threes are more settled having spent a whole year refining their language skills.  

Threes are less egocentric(self-centered, selfish).   While twos notice their parent's emotions, threes get involved with them.   

Threes become more satisfied with themselves, more obedient, and begin to praise "self. "  

Threes thrives on choices and selection process makes them feel important.  

NOTE:  Share your choice-making with threes!   

PUZZLE IN A SHOEBOX from "Games for Preschoolers" (BJ10) Product with more ideas in www.welearnbydoing.com

      Skills Reinforced:  Working together, thinking   

      Procedure: 

1.      Two groups of children sit on the floor in two different circles.  

2.      Two shoeboxes are filled with puzzle pieces in it.

3.      If an 8-piece puzzle is used, then have eight children sit in a circle.   Keep the same amount of puzzle pieces for each group.  

4.      At the signal, the first child pulls out one piece of puzzle from each group and places it in the middle of the circle and returns to their spot.

5.      The shoebox is passed to the second child who places it next to the other puzzle piece.

6.      This continues until all 8 pieces of puzzle are next to each other.

7.      As the groups start again with the first child, that child has 10 seconds to try to connect two pieces together.   If the child does it or does not do it, that child returns to their spot and the next child tries to connect two pieces.

8.      This continues around the circle until the puzzle is completed.   Remember if a child connects two pieces of puzzle together only, they must return to their spot.  

9.      The first team to complete the puzzle ...

ONE to TEN RELAY Game

 Skills Reinforced:  Number Identification 1-10, Fine and Gross Motor Movements

   Procedure:

1.      Select two groups of ten and have a starting line ten feet from the blackboard.

2.      The teacher gives the “go” signal with a movement direction like “hop on one foot.”  The first set of children move to the blackboard hopping.   They write number 1 and hop back.   The children with numbers three and six proceed to “hop on one foot” and exchange squares.   The caller also tries to get to one of the squares “hopping on one foot” before the others do.

3.      The next set of children may have the direction of walking backwards and they write 2 and walk backwards back.  

4.      The teacher continues to create eight more movements until the number 10 is on the blackboard.

5.      This game can continue by having the children erase one number at a time in a relay until all the numbers are erased.