Are you looking for low-prep, easy music activities to engage your preschool and kindergarten students?
From simple movement activities to creative crafts and extension ideas, in this blog post I’m sharing 5 music activities for preschool and kindergarten that you can incorporate this week in your classes or sessions.
5 Music Activities For Preschool and Kindergarten:
1- Play with movement scarves
Watch your students’ faces light up with excitement as they joyfully twirl and sway around the room with colorful movement scarves during music time. Movement scarves add an extra element of fun to any movement song while kids express themselves freely with each jump, spin, and twist.
Kids can also creatively express themselves by letting their imagination soar experimenting and coming up with movements of their own.
Our song, Blowing In The Wind, it’s a great song to pair up with scarves during music time. Take a look at the video below by Tuneful Teaching for how much fun this song can be! A quick, easy, low-prep activity you can incorporate at any time during music time.
2- have fun dancing!
Movement songs are my favorite type of songs!
They are a blast for kids and they engage their bodies and minds simultaneously. Movement songs encourage physical activity, improve coordination, and enhance gross motor skills while providing a stimulating and entertaining way to learn new concepts… and well, we have lots of fun, too!
Incorporate simple movements like stretching, dancing, jumping, or swaying to promote gross motor skills development and help release some pent-up energy. What’s also fun is to ask kids to come up with their own movements for some added creativity.
I can’t just pick one movement song to share with you but here are some of my favorites that you can bring to your music class or therapy session today:
Gotta Keep Dancing
“Gotta Keep Dancing” aims to bring to kids fun, laughter and silliness through dancing! (And who would’ve thought kids would love the “pose” part of this song so much?! 😉) Just trust me on this one and try it!
Just Dance
Kids start standing with their knees bent and then they twist. As they twist, they get a little bit higher, and little bit higher, and when their legs are straight and they get to the top, they’re free to move depending on the movement we suggest (jump, dance, wiggle, etc.). Kids may also have the chance to contribute to what happens in the song if you're playing this song live.
Chugga Chugga Choo Choo
Chugga Chugga Choo Choo is a train movement song that can explore train movements (arms moving in a circular motion by your side) and movements such as jumping or dancing. This train movement songs is one of my favorite — it ends with stretching, yawning and falling asleep.
3- play red light green light
Preschoolers & Kindergarteners will have a blast playing Red Light, Green Light! Watch as the little ones giggle and squeal with delight as they race to reach the finish line without getting caught moving on a “red light.” Get ready for endless rounds of laughter and excitement especially by moving with our song Red Light, Green Light!
You've heard me go on and on about the magic of musical cues. This song has TONS of them. When you listen to it, it sounds simple, but it's actually full of musical communication: stacking cadences in the melody and the harmony, starts/stops, mutes, holds, etc.
When a song stacks musical cues, there's a good chance that kids will GET IT (and it will "work"). Give this movement song a whirl and let me know what your students/clients think!
4- Make a craft (or take a movement break)
Music + Art= a great way to pause. Your students will love taking a little break listening to our song Busy Like A Bee and working on this fun craft (watch the video below). Make a bee antenna with some pipe cleaners, pom poms, ribbon, or tulle. This is what I’m doing in the video: Wrap black and yellow pipe cleaners (or any color of your choosing) around a headband, twist them to the top. You can help your students secure them on the top with hot glue. You can also add a small amount of glue to the bent ends of the antennae and attach pom poms.
This craft time can then be followed by a movement break dancing around with this song while you all wear your antennae!
5- read a book
Is there anything more enjoyable than a good book? Especially after the active and busier activities we just had fun with, reading a book can generally help us bring ground ourselves and bring the energy down in the music room.
Two books (and their original melodies) you might want to try out:
The Pout Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen has been a long-time favorite music book of mine (this melody is catchy!!) and I recently brought it out again. Kids love it and it’s probably my favorite book melody I’ve written. Hope you and the kids in your life love it, too!
Extension Ideas:
Hand, Hand, Fingers Thumb by Al Perkins is a classic children's book known for its catchy rhythm and engaging illustrations. The book follows a group of monkeys as they drum, tap, and clap their way through various activities.
Add instruments, have kids say and play these rhythmic words. After the students are familiar with the book and how the melody goes, get out some drums! They could share drums in pairs or have their own. If you do not have drums, you could have them drum on their laps or drum using rhythm sticks on the floor. You could have them tap the steady beat throughout the story then the rhythm when it gets to the repeating part “dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum”.
