I love the fact that songs can encourage creativity from making up songs or making up an activity to go with a song. Children are amazingly creative and imaginative and as we go through life we are usually told what is right and wrong or the right way to do something or the wrong way.
How can we encourage ongoing creativity?
I believe singing and music does this very well if we let it.
When I introduce a song or rhyme I obviously sing or say it first. I will have a good idea for a prop or game to use which helps to engage children and learn and of course I have a learning aim. How I get to this aim is sometimes helped by children
One of my favourite songs is Cobbler, Cobbler and it is a favourite with children too. Rhythmically each line of the song is the same and so is the pitch – so a very easy song to learn.
Sometimes I use claves with Cobbler, Cobbler. I like the sound they make – as if a cobbler is tapping and mending a shoe. I always start by tapping them together (when I am teaching pulse) and isn’t long before a child is doing something else with them other than tapping them together. Many parents jump in and try to change what they are doing but watching carefully you may be able to use something as an advantage.
In a nursery session the other week we had just sung See Saw and then moved onto Cobbler, Cobbler. I got out the claves (two wooden sticks) and one little boy arranged them on the floor, perpendicular, one on top of the other (so it looked like a cross) and exclaimed “look a seesaw!”. Now I could have ignored this but instead I thought this was a great idea and we sang See Saw again using the shape he had made moving the top clave like a see saw to the pulse of the song.
Its moments like this that I love what I do and children keep me on my toes and alert. I would have been crazy to have missed this opportunity! I keep this in mind now as something to use even for Cobbler, Cobbler – also because the movement (even though to the pulse) doesn’t make a sound – a great talking point.
Here are some other songs I use to bring out creativity:
Jelly on a plate
Jelly on a plate
Jelly on a plate
Wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble
Jelly on a plate
I love being able to change this rhyme, even though I try to keep the rhythm the same. The children come up with all sorts of ideas… Jelly in my shoes, tummy, on my head, in my bed etc. The children also have great fun making their own up!
With foundation classes upwards I also take in my bag of finger puppets and ask them to choose one. We then might make a rhyme up like:
Robin in a tree,
Robin in a tree,
fly away, fly away
Robin in a tree.
We have great fun with mice, fish, humpty dumpty, spiders, snakes all sorts of different characters.
You can also change the words to things like:
Popcorn in a pan
Popcorn in a pan
Munchy, munchy, munchy, munchy
Popcorn in a pan
There are lots and lots of things you can do with songs to promote creativity by either changing words or using a prop to help but also just letting children choose movements.
Copy Cat is a great song for getting children to use their creativity in movement. I have had a variety of actions to copy from karate kicks to spinning and I try to incorporate them all even though I might be teaching pulse.
If you would like to learn more about how music learning can help your child, have a look at the rest of my site here. If you work in Early Years settings you can pop along to the Think Creative Daily Smile YouTube channel for more songs and ideas!
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