Author: Margie La Bella

Transitions with Young Children

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Audio Upload:
      everybodywavehello.mp3

Transitioning a group of kids from one activity to another can be stressful for the students… and hence the teacher as well.  Some kids really need advance notification that the thing they are doing will change.  They may become anxious, fearful, or angry when they have to stop doing one thing and go with the flow to the next activity. 

We sometimes tell our students that they’ll clean up
… in three minutes,
… then in two,
… then in one
… and then we go for it!

Other children do well with pictures of the parts of their day displayed on a large board. As the class moves from event to event we remove the pictures thereof.  This is a significant help to children who feel anxious, need a lot of structure, and/or are on the spectrum.

Singing is a great way to initiate a transition.  Singing gets a child’s attention, and the familiar words help them focus and become the first part of the transition. Either way, just a spoonful of singing makes the transitions go down much better.  Here are two of my favorites: 

Clean Up Time
(Tune: Miss Lucy had a baby, she named him tiny Tim….)  

It’s clean up time everybody.
It’s clean up time right now. 
If I help you and you help me,
Then we’ll get ready for _______.

Circle Time is Almost Done!
(Tune: Buffalo girls, won’t you come out tonight…)

Circle time is almost done,
Almost done, almost done.
Circle time is almost done,
Then we’re going to ______.

Of course, you can make up your own songs, but that’s another blog!

Margie La Bella is a music therapist with over 24 years experience working with pre-school and school aged children.   Her Move! and Mixing It UP albums are full of inviting and appealing songs developed to facilitate learning through active movement to music. 

Listen to Everybody Wave Hello from Move in the audio player, below.

The Importance of Movement in Learning

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Audio Upload:
      tweettweetlittlebirdy.mp3

What’s the importance of learning through movement to music?  Does it really enhance learning? 

Children are born with a major thrust to grow brain cell connections. They seek involvement, active engagement, and hands-on participation in their physical environment.   

Babies and young children are like little physicists seeking out all the sensory stimulation and cause/effect experience they can wrap their little bodies around.  They are scientists, experimenting with everything they can get their hands (and mouths) on. Gravity, momentum, parabolic flight paths, and stimulus-response are among the subjects they study.  

We all know about the senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.  There are actually two other senses that we depend upon. The proprioceptive sense is stimulated whenever we use a muscle or compress/use a joint.  The vestibular system responds where, or how, the head is positioned in space and to the speed of bodily movement.  (It’s how you know where different body parts are when your eyes are closed.)  It provides a reference point for the other senses in processing their information.

Educational research shows that multi-sensory teaching produces the best learning. When there is a difficulty learning through one part of the brain, the other senses and learning modalities can compensate, complement and enhance each other. 

Kids are hard-wired to seek sensory input through movement — and movement involves the visual, auditory, tactile, propriocepive and vestibular senses.  Use of the correct music can engage, motivate, focus, reward and provide the maximum environment for learning. Moving to the right music can compliment and cement in the skill/lesson/goal you are trying to teach.

Use music that is meaningful to the learner:

  •    Not overly “busy,” distracting, loud or fast
  •     Age appropriate,
  •     Lyric appropriate,
  •     and… fun! 

Margie is a music therapist with over 24 years experience working with pre-school and school aged children.   Her Move! and Mixing It UP albums are full of inviting and appealing songs developed to facilitate learning through active movement to music. 

 Listen to Tweet Tweet, Little Birdy  in the audio player, below.