Exploring Voice Sounds

Music for Learning

Learning Objectives – Exploring voice sounds
There are many sounds that you can make with your voice. I’ll make the sound first and then you copy me.

Tell the children what sound you are going to make.

Make the sound.

Ask the children to copy the sound.

Discuss where that sound is made.

Here is an example: whisper a few words and ask the children to copy you. Talk about whispering if someone is asleep.

Here are some other sounds to make:
Singing, whistling, hissing, coughing, crying, talking, breathing, sighing, humming , laughing and sneezing.

Things to do to take this activity to the next level:
For building confidence - What sounds do you like to make with your voice?

For developing the idea: Developing: Can you make a sad sound, a funny sound, or a singing sound?

For moving forward:  Could you teach someone at your house to make sounds? Who would that be?


Learning Objective – Learning Color Vocabulary
Each child needs a piece of paper and the following crayons: yellow, red, black and blue.

Sing the following songs to the children in the order that they appear here.

Sing one song at a time and ask them what color did they hear in the song.

Ask them to find that color crayon and draw something on their paper using that crayon.

Continue on with the next song.

Here is the order of the songs:
"Yellow Bird"
"Red Red Robin"
":Miss Mary Mack"
Skip to My Lou"
"Jennie Jenkins"

If you don’t know the song, go to kiddidles.com and you can find the words and hear the music.

Things to do to take this activity to the next level:
For building confidence: The song "Skip to My Lou" has the names of two colors. What are they?

For developing the idea: Let’s sing some of these songs again.

For moving forward:  Let’s make up a song with color words in it.

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Again, Please!

FOR TODDLERS

Learning Objective – Developing Reading Skills
Again, Please!
When toddlers like a poem, a books or a song, they want to hear it again and again. Sometimes that is very boring to the caregiver.

Here are some ideas to make it more interesting and develop reading skills in the children.

Ask the children to tell the story in their own words.

Read the story and let your children fill in words. They probably have it memorized by now.

Select simple stories that the children can memorize and they will become favorites at this age.

Help the children act out the story.

Things to do to take this activity to the next level:
For building confidence: What story do you like to hear over and over again?

For developing the idea: Let’s look at the pictures and talk about the story.

For moving forward: Can you tell me the story?

FOR TODDLERS

Learning Objective – Language Skills

Important Accents
The current brain research says: that young children develop a clear bias for words with first-syllable accents .
With this information, you can help develop your child’s language abilities.

For example, the rhyme “Baa Baa Black Sheep” is a good rhyme for playing this game. Say the rhyme and put an accent on the first word of each line.

Baa Baa black sheep
Have you any wool
Yes sir, yes sir
Three bags full
Some other rhymes that work well with accenting the first word in each line are; London Bridge, Mary Had a Little Lamb and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Things to do to take this activity to the next level:
For building confidence: Let’s say the poem Baa Baa Black Sheep and make some of the words louder than the others.

For developing the idea: Can you ask me a question and make the first word louder than the rest?”

For moving forward: Can you sing a song making some of the words louder than the others?

Where Is the Sound?

A young child's brain grows at a phenomenal rate in the early years of life opening windows of opportunity for learning that occurs only once in a lifetime.
These simple games will promote early brain development for Infants and toddlers.

FOR INFANTS

Learning Objective – Auditory Development

Where Is the Sound?

The newest brain research says that musical experiences enhance the future ability to reason abstractly, particularly in the spatial domains.

Auditory awareness is something that comes with age and experience.

Playing games to heighten your baby’s hearing awareness will help wire her brain.

Take a wind-up musical toy and put it out of your baby’s sight.

Wind it up and ask her “where’s the music?”

When she turns to the sound, praise her generously.

Repeat this game in different parts of the room.

 If your baby is crawling, you can hide the music under a pillow or elsewhere so that she can crawl to the music.

Ideas to take this activity to the next level:
For building confidence: Repeat the game several times and praise your baby.

For developing the idea: Put the musical toy at different levels: on a table, on a chair, on the floor, etc.

For moving forward: Put the toy next to the baby and clap hands and sing "la la la" to the music. 

FOR INFANTS

Learning Objective – Practicing Language

Speak with your body

When babies learn new words, they like to repeat them over and over because they enjoy the sounds. Practicing speech patterns is a wonderful pre-reading experience.

Start with simple words like “moon.” Say it with your mouth several times,’

Say it in the evening so that you can point to the sky as you say it.

Say it with your hands  Clap your hands as you say the word.

Say it with your head. (move your head up and down to the word).

Say it with your feet - (stamp your feet to the word.)

Say it with your eyes -(blink your eyes to the word)

Play the same game with another word or words.

Ideas to take this activity to the next level:
For building confidence: It's fun to say the words in different ways. Let's say the word and I will bounce you on my knee.

For developing the idea: Let's say a new word and clap our hands at the same time. Pick a name of a family member.

For moving forward: Tell me a word you would like to say with this game.