Why Music at Home?
So, you’re a busy homeschool parent and you are looking for ways to connect with your kids, help them succeed in all areas of life and school, and have fun doing it? You’re in luck, because I’m about to share with you three ways that learning music at home together can benefit your child. If these things excite you, but you don’t know how to get started, grab our Music at Home Curriculum Guide to help you get started!
Music is a fantastic tool to help kids learn and grow. It promotes good social emotional learning, builds connections with other subject areas, and helps promote healthy motor and brain development. Keep reading for more details about each of these benefits.
1. The Social-Emotional Benefit
Alright, this is kind of a buzzword in the education space these days, but hear me out here. All humans need to learn how to deal with big emotions, develop resilience and a good work ethic, and get along with others in order to succeed in life. This is basically the idea behind how I use this term when I’m thinking about my music classes.
The thing is, the kids who learn these skills better and earlier always do better in life, including in their school and academic life. This is the reason why we as teachers are always thinking about how to help our students continue to develop these skills. Here’s an example story:
The Resilience Renaissance
A couple of months ago, I was teaching recorder to a group of second graders. There were 8 students in my class at the time (I teach at a private school where class sizes are a bit smaller). We were working on a program called “Recorder Karate,” where the kids could work individually to earn belts as they passed off songs.
A couple kids soared through the music quickly as they figured out where to place their fingers, how to blow into the instrument just right, and–of course–it helped that they may already have known how to read music. A few more kids needed to work a little harder to read the notes and make sure they didn’t have any squeaky notes, but they were able to pass off their first few songs in the first couple of weeks.
Then I had a couple of kids (we’ll call them James and Paul, although those aren’t their real names) who began to really struggle. Not because they were less talented or capable than the other kids, but because they would get extremely frustrated and be unable to practice and improve their playing.
It might be worth it to note that recorders in elementary school are really fickle instruments and it actually takes quite a lot of concentration to make them sound decent. And by descent we just mean that it has some semblance of sounding like an instrument and not a honking goose. If you’ve been a recorder parent, you know. I tell the students that they need to practice until there are little to no “squeaks” in their sound, which takes concentration even for me.
These students, James and Paul, would begin to try and practice, make a little squeak, and get very upset. Before long, the second grade recorder class began to include yelling, throwing instruments, tears, you name it. Pretty much everything besides learning the recorder.
After several classes like this, I began to be pretty concerned about the situation, and I knew I needed to find a way to help them manage frustrating emotions so that they (and the other students for that matter) could be successful. I decided that we were going to spend a good chunk of the next music class talking about RESILIENCE. I found a presentation about resilience on the internet and we talked about what resilience is, how we can develop it, and what our resources were in music class when we were trying to do something hard.
After that, I’d love to say that things were instantly better, but everything takes practice. However, things did improve a LOT in that class. There was no more throwing of instruments, chairs, or other things. When the boys or any other students were frustrated, they knew things that they could do. And I could easily remind them. The best part was that they also started passing off recorder songs! I guarantee they would not have been as successful if we had not taken some time to learn about resilience in music class. Now they also have a skill that they can take and apply to other areas of life as well.
And here we thought that learning the recorder was useless in real life! Now we know at least one of the great benefits of learning music, whether at school or at home! And there are countless other examples of how music students learn other real life skills, such as these:
Learning Music teaches:
Resilience
Getting along with others/ working together in a group setting toward a larger goal
How to deal with disappointment
Regulating emotions
How to work hard over a period of time toward a goal
How to be vulnerable in front of others
These skills are just as relevant to an at-home music situation! Think about it: you probably will have at least one similar story with your own children as I shared about my music class! The only difference is you’re the one showing up and making the difference for your own kids.
2. Making Connections Between Subjects
For me, this is one of the coolest parts about teaching music. You can easily include many subjects in music experiences, along with teaching performance skills. Here are some examples:
Music and Math Skills
Music inherently includes math. Counting, fractions, addition, subtraction, and even multiplication and division skills are needed in order to read musical rhythms.
Music and Language skills
Music is a universal language. Music is also a great way for kids to practice reading, speech, and even learn about a new language. You don’t need to know a language in order to learn a song in that language!
Music and History
One thing I love to include is lessons about composers and artists in different places and time periods. We also learn how music is connected to current and historical events, and how the musical elements speak to the time that the composer lived.
Music and Culture
An amazing way to learn about different cultures and places is by learning about their music, composers, and dance styles! You can do this while traveling, or from the comfort of your own home!
Music and Science
How is sound created? How do we get different pitches? How do our ears perceive them? These are all science questions that can also be connected to musical experiences that solidify those concepts.
Music and Art
Music is many things: It is math, it is science, it is language, and it is art. Music is a place where kids can express themselves and continue to develop their creativity.
As a homeschool parent, you probably teach many other subject to your kids as well. Adding in these connections with music can help them learn better and have fun doing it.
3. Body Awareness and Physical Development
Have you ever tried a form of dance that you were completely unfamiliar with? Or maybe a yoga pose that you’ve never done before? Chances are that when you tried these things, you started to wake up your awareness to places in your body that you hadn’t given much thought to before. You also had to concentrate a little extra on your motor skills in order to accomplish the task at hand.
Kids and adolescents are still developing and growing, and, as such, they need to develop both big and small motor skills. Movement to music, such as dance, rhythmic motions, etc. help develop larger motor skills. Playing instruments and singing help develop small motor skills.
Music and dance activities also help kids develop body and spatial awareness, which helps them in other settings such as in a group, playing sports, and while sitting in class.
How is Music Going in Your Home?
Now that you know many of the benefits of music in an educational setting, you can put it into practice in your own family! You can start simply and choose one song or dance to learn together, or just have a free choice dance party! You can also stay tuned to this blog for more ideas, and subscribe to our newsletter to get your free curriculum guide, as well as other free activity ideas in the future.
If you want to learn more about the benefits of music on childhood development, here are some additional resources:
Studies on music psychology and education:
Until next time, Happy music making!
Katie