Why Music & Movement are so important to Early Childhood Learning

An exerpt from a terrific article on Infusing Music and Movement in Early Childhood Learning published in the ECMMA newsletter.

Musical Concepts

Early childhood is a time when comparatives such as big and small, hot and cold, loud and soft, high and low, or fast and slow are introduced. This is a great time to work with musical comparatives as well. “Children seem to demonstrate elements of expressiveness through changes of loudness and speed . . .” (Swanwick, 1991). Teachers should choose a varied repertoire of fast and slow, loud and soft, higher and lower, and smooth and choppy songs.



The concept of fast and slow can be experienced with a lullaby and a march. To help students experience a slow piece, give each student a teddy bear or stuffed animal and sing a song such as the American lullaby Hush, Little Babyor All the Pretty Little Horses, an African-American lullaby from the southern United States. Ask the children to rock a stuffed animal to sleep, as a mother would rock a baby. In contrast, play an excerpt from John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever. Ask children to step the beat, clap, or jump with the music. Children can immediately demonstrate the difference they feel between these two musical ideas.



The Old Grey Cat(Spotlight on Music, 2005) is a fun song that illustrates fast and slow. See the Pony Galloping(Spotlight on Music, 2005) and Rig-a-jig-jig and Away We Go(Feierabend, 2004) are excellent examples of smooth and choppy. My Many Colored Days(Seuss,1996) explores musical contrasts and the book has a recording available.



Once students are familiar with a core of songs, the teacher can start to introduce the comparative words and children can identify the differences. A word wall with the terms Long- Short, Fast-Slow, Loud-Soft, Smooth-Choppy would be very appropriate for the early childhood classroom or home school area.



Watching children during their times of play, teachers and parents can recognize that the fun children have in singing a new song over and over again, exploring new moves with their bodies, or creating new sounds is the method by which they process and retain new information. Implementation of “playing as learning” into all musical activities will allow children to demonstrate their new skills in a joyful atmosphere of learning. Moreover, the knowledge that children are learning as they play through music is simply the icing on the cake.


By Jana Fallin, Ph.D.

with Staci Horton, Susan Vice Bennett, and Diana Taylor