Activities to do with young children while listening to classical music

Young children enjoy moving and responding to all types of music — and listening to classical music is a good place to start. Watch as their joyful enthusiasm and imagination ignite, and you may enjoy the experience with them!

Here are some activities you can do with your young children while listening to your favorite classical music.

Sway and dance back and forth to the music. For children 18 months to three years old, it's also fun to tell them to intermittently "stop or freeze" while they're dancing and swaying. Then, whoever is calling stop or freeze says "go" and they may start moving again.

An adult and/or one of the children could be the leader of a gentle parade. If there are scarves or rhythm sticks available, the children could "play" those while they are in the parade. If you're feeling industrious, you could also make some homemade instruments ahead of time by painting or using markers on boxes, milk cartons, or paper plates. The children may play the instruments while walking.

Children may turn into different animals during the music. Some suggestions for morphing into specific animals might be: a bird, an elephant, a sting ray, a dolphin, a snake, a sea turtle.

Children may turn into a very tall tree and slowly grow branches (arms) and leaves (fingers). They could also grow strong roots below their feet. Stomping their little feet to grow roots is a good way to do this. Here's a chant that's enjoyable to learn to while stomping their feet and growing roots: "Stomp our feet, grow our roots, shake our leaves up high! (shake hands above head) We are growing strong and tall. (Stand on tiptoes, if possible) We can touch the sky!" Children may then stand normally on their feet and lower their branches (arms) and pretend sunshine warms them. The sun may go away and then gentle rain falls on them as well as snowflakes.

If children are four to six years old, it's likely they would enjoy different scenarios involving what happens to the tree as it stands there. A kite may get stuck in its branches and they may have to gracefully throw the kite back to the child on the ground — or maybe there is a bird's nest with little chicks in one of the tree branches (arm or hand). Kids love to coo back to the little chicks, but of course, they must stand very still so as not to topple the nest. At the holidays, maybe someone will string brightly-colored lights on the tree and the trees will stand up very straight because they are so proud of their beauty.

A fun variation of the above is growing from a sunflower seed into a tall sunflower. Children would start out in a crouch on the floor and slowly grow until they're standing very tall. Hands may turn into flowers with fingers turning into seeds of the flowers. Of course, imaginary birds may fly down and nibble on the flowers and seeds! Then, it's fun to flutter fingers as the birds tickle them. Sometimes a storm will blow in and the tall sunflowers may sway from side to side because of the wind.

Use colorful scarves to make clouds that float above children's heads. You can also paint a pretend rainbow with the scarf/paint brush, imagine flying birds, or create a chrysalis that turns into a flying butterfly. Then there are elephant trunks, snowballs (squish the scarves up in a ball), magic flying carpets, super hero capes, flags, sails on sailboats, and any number of other fun imaginary objects. Older kids may enjoy going to destinations like the rainforest or any other exotic place while on the flying carpet or in the sailboat. Children may like making ghosts out of the scarves at Halloween time and swirling them around to the music.

While I've listed many action activities for children, one of the most peaceful gifts to give to your child is playing lullabies while your child is falling asleep. The beautiful music blocks out any background noise in the house as well as exposes them to more sophisticated music and gently lulls them off to sleep.

Joan Schubert is a music educator living in Minneapolis. She writes about children and music at her blog MusicChild.

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