Enjoying Music with Your Preschooler

(Ages Two to Five)

• Provide all kinds of rhythm instruments for your child to experiment with.
• Purchase age-appropriate CD players and teach your child how to use them.  Let her start her own music collection.
• Give children scarves, feathers, or ribbons and turn on classical music and let them dance, sing and improvise to the music.
• Play clapping games to see if they can match a variety of simple and complex rhtyhms.
• Read to and help your child memorize all kinds of poems and Mother Goose rhymes that have a strong musical rhythm.
• Read stories about great composers, instruments of the orchestra, and general music books.
• Play marches in the morning as your child is getting ready for the day.  She will enjoy marching to the bath, to dress or to eat.  The strong rhythmic beat will help her accomplish these tasks with ease as well as keep her focused on the task at hand.
• Play music for your child throughout the day.
• Play classical music while your child is going to sleep at night and when she is getting up in the morning.
• Enroll your child in group music classes.