Walk into any early childhood environment and the sounds of singing, clapping and joyful music will be heard. The quality of the music activities and instruments offered to young children does matter. While some young children enjoy and excel in formal instrument training such as Suzuki violin, Orff classes or piano lessons, a simple introduction to rhythm and music can be achieved with authentic child sized instruments and activities that focus on rhythm patterns and a child’s freedom to explore.
Benefits to Young Children
Studies show that a child who plays an instrument has increased self-confidence, enhanced listening and cooperation skills, better hand-eye coordination, improved motor skills and superior spatial reasoning. A very young child who experiences music as a pre-language activity is exercising her brain for higher cognitive functions in later development. Playing an instrument and exploring rhythm develops a child’s understanding of sequential learning, which is an important pre-reading skill.
Additionally, the portion of the brain that gives a child musical talent works in conjunction with the portion of the brain that develops math skills. Overall, a child who plays and explores with musical instruments is aided in her emotional, social, physical and academic development.
Real Instruments are Important
95% of making music is rhythm. When a child is offered a real instrument, rather than a plastic toy version, she will experience the musical tone of an accurate sounding instrument while feeling free to explore rhythm and natural patterns when creating a beat. When the sound is appealing, a child will be drawn to use the instrument, explore with it and subsequently develop a love of creating music. To offer a child a range of musical experiences, a set of authentic percussion instruments from around the world give a child rhythm exploration and an opportunity to learn about other cultures in a meaningful way.
Authentic Instruments for Children
Founded by free-spirited world traveler, John Hayden, Jamtown offers affordable high quality fair trade percussion rhythm instruments from all over the world. Jamtown is committed to supporting artisans who are making native musical instruments using traditional handcrafted methods.
With school budgets being cut, music specialists are often the first to go. Jamtown has created percussion rhythm activities to go along with its instruments that are easy to use for ages three through adult and are appropriate for use in school environments and at home.
The Sun Moon Star drum, winner of the Creative Child Preferred 2009 award, is the perfect portable percussion instrument for a young child to experiment with rhythm and sound patterns. Made in Peru, the Sun Moon Star Drum is basically a drum set on a stick perfect for use with children. The drum comes with an instructional DVD that makes getting started easy and demonstrates fun games to play using the drum.
Two favorite Jamtown percussion games are Homer & Roamer and Singer Dinger. In Homer & Roamer, one child is the “homer” who plays a repetitive base beat on the drum, while the other child is the “roamer” and is free to play any rhythm at the same time on the same drum. The homer and roamer switch roles as the game continues. Singer Dinger is a call and response group game where one child sings a rhythm using the words of sun, moon, star and the other children respond by playing the sung rhythm on the drum. A child of any skill level can enjoy the challenge of following the sung pattern and creating musical pattern.
Success with Percussion Instruments
A child of any age can make a beautiful sound with a percussion instrument. Allowing a child explore music on a real instrument provides an authentic music experience and exposes her to rhythms, patterns and beats of music from other cultures from all over the world.
Jocelyn Scotty - A freelance educational writer, certified Montessori teacher, former teacher educator and school administrator, Jocelyn is also the ...
