For preschool teachers, wanting to incorporate musical ideas into the classroom can produce a bit of anxiety. But, anybody with the right tools, a bit of imagination and a lot of enthusiasm can lead music activities for preschoolers. The book,
101 Rhythm Instrument Activities for Young Children by Abigail Flesch Connors, will help even the most tone-deaf preschool teacher engage their students in music-based activities.
The book is divided up into 5 main sections based upon instrument type: Rhythm Sticks, Shakers, Jingle Bells, Sand Blocks, and Other Instruments (which includes drums, triangles, tambourines, and cymbals). There is also a section devoted to Rhythm Band Activities and Activities for Toddlers. There are 10 to 33 activities listed for each instrument type. For the most part, Ms. Connors has rewritten the lyrics to familiar children's songs, such as London Bridge and The Farmer in the Dell, and created activities around those songs. For the average preschool teacher, this makes learning the singing portion of the activities quite easy. The "how-to" directions for each activity are very easy to understand and each activity should take 5-10 minutes to execute.
This book is filled with some great activities that engage the students creatively. Wake Up Groundhog, Pop Goes the Weasel, Animal Footprints and Who Will Help Me? are some of my favorites. Not only are the activities fun for the students, but the "non-musical" teacher will find the simplicity of the activities make teaching music easy. However, many of the activities are simply, "speak this chant and shake your maracas/ tap your sticks/play the drum, etc" or follow the leader type of games, that, while they use musical ideas, do not teach any musical skills.
If you are a music specialist, you may find this book useful to jump-start your creative juices, but probably will not rely upon it for the meat of your teaching. As musical experiences, Ms. Connors has some fine activities, but she does not intentionally teach musical concepts, and has simply created activities that expose children to a few basic musical skills, such as dynamics and tempo. The music specialist could take any number of these activities and simply expand on the concept and create several skill-based music classes.
As I was reading through the book, I kept questioning Ms. Connor's familiarity with music literature. I say this for two reasons: 1. Ms. Connors relies heavily upon rewriting the lyrics to simple children's songs for the majority of her activities: The Farmer in the Dell becomes The Tapper in the Dell, The Bear Went Over the Mountain becomes The Sand Block Went to a Party, London Bridge becomes Shake Your Shaker in the Air, etc. Although this practice does make easy work of song-learning for the non-music specialist, with all the excellent music available to teachers today, this is a crutch that preschool music specialists need to move past. 2. For some activities she will say "put on some lively music" or "play some music with a strong beat" without making any specific recommendations. She likes to suggest march music, but again does not list any specific march tunes to use. For all sorts of pedagogical and developmental reasons, some music should not be used in the preschool classroom - even some march music. A simple song list in the back of the book would have been an invaluable resource for preschool teachers and would help to ensure that students are exposed to the highest quality music available.
I must point out that there is one activity in this collection that is theoretically and technically inaccurate. The activity "Don't Say Ain't" purports to use rhythm sticks to teach steady beat. The instructions are "as you chant the following rhyme, tap on the dominant beats (in boldface)". Here's what she has written:
Don't say aint
Your
mother will faint.
Your
father will step in a
bucket of paint.
Your
sister will cry.
Your
brother will sigh.
The
cat and the
dog will say good-bye!
For this rhyme, the dominant beats are on beat 1 and 3, and the clapping should occur where I've indicated in boldface:
Don't say
aint/ Your
mother will
faint/ Your
father will
step in a
bucket of
paint/ Your
sister will
cry/ Your
brother will
sigh/ The
cat and
dog will
say good-
bye!
Keeping a steady beat is a difficult skill for preschoolers. Demonstrate this skill frequently and they will soon catch on; but let's not say that we are teaching how to clap on the dominant beats and then demonstrate something different. The difficulty a preschooler has in keeping a steady beat leads me also to point out, that Ms. Connors should've noted that managing rhythm sticks is often difficult for preschoolers, especially 3 and 4 year olds. I have found that preschoolers can often clap a steady beat, but once you put rhythm sticks in their hands, they lose their attention to precision and the steady beat is lost. For the non-musical preschool teacher who decides to implement one of these rhythm sticks activities and then watches her students struggle with coordination, not being aware of the developmental issue behind this could be a source of exasperation and lead her to give up on the rhythm stick activities.
Even with some of the pedagogical issues, this book is still a great resource for preschool teachers. I would applaud the preschool teacher who picks up a copy of this book and chooses one activity a week to use with her students.
