2. What Types of Activities Make Up a Program?

The two main types of activities in parents’ interactions with babies, toddlers and preschoolers are lullabies and play songs*.

Lullabies calm and soothe children, while play songs, or action songs for preschoolers, engage and excite. When we sing or play recordings of lullabies, children tend to be passive/receptive. When we focus on ‘play songs’, the children are interactive, that is they are performing actions in some way.

2.1 Programming with both types: Calming and Engaging Activities

When I program for babies and toddlers, the under-threes, I usually include lullabies. In preschool programming for three and four-year-olds, I rarely use lullabies. Instead, I sing a story song at the end of each session for its calming effect. This is because it captivates the children by blending the contour of the melody and the pattern of the rhythm with the descriptive visual images and the storytelling in the lyrics.

However, most of my programming effort is devoted to finding the most suitable ‘play songs’ or ‘action songs’ from many cultures. These action songs for preschoolers, toddlers and babies immediately engage the children because of their irresistible rhythms, repetition, and often funny lyrics, but mainly because the children get to do something!

2.2.  Programming with 8 Sub-types of Exciting ‘Play Songs’

To help me organise my programs, I divide the category of play songs or action songs into these eight sub-types, each with a different purpose:

1. Social conventions –‘Hello’ and ‘Pack Away’
2. Body percussion and hand-action songs
3. Fingerplay songs
4. Memory songs (including ‘call and response’)
5. Rhythm — instrument songs
6. Melody and harmony — instrument songs
7. Drama and movement songs – (loudness dynamics, and tempo variations); (props for dramatic and sensory play)
8. Games and dances (whole-body movement)

Here’s a short description of each one and its application

TIP 1. Social convention songs.

These include ‘Hello’ and ‘Pack-up’ songs. With your hello song, you can incorporate various hand waves, even using sign language.

Alternatively, before you sing hello to each child, ask them to choose an action for everyone to follow, or pass around a small drum. This keeps all the children engaged until their turn comes around. It is highly repetitive, but strangely, it works and seems to help everyone settle into the idea that we will be singing for a while. With pack-up songs, you effectively do the work while singing.

Decide on a Hello Song. Here is ours, you can download it from SoundCloud.

TIP.2. Body percussion and hand-action songs.

These action-packed games internalise the strong driving beat of the song so that it’s a sensation on the child’s body. Body percussion and other action songs, chants and raps involve movements such as patting the knees, clapping the hands, pounding the fists, stamping the feet, and crossing each arm and hand across the body to slap the shoulder.

This is known as ‘crossing the mid-line’. It wires the left and right brain together, supporting the coordination so necessary for a good day of learning.

Search for Body Percussion and Hand-action Songs. Add them to your repertoire folder. Make a playlist of the tracks.

TIP 3. Fingerplay songs.

Each finger‘s movement is performed precisely to match a lyric. It’s as though each finger is a tiny puppet in a miniature puppet show. By choosing the right finger play, you can create a delightful moment in the child’s day.

A child who knows how to perform a finger play can play alone, with another child, or show a caring adult at any time of the day. It’s a gift for the child’s mind, body, and social development. It’s a category of action songs for preschoolers that has small and intimate activities whereas others have large, whole body activities.

Search for Fingerplay Songs. Add them to your repertoire folder. Make a playlist of the tracks.

TIP 4. Memory songs.

These highly-valued songs contain lyrics about those things children simply have to learn by heart – the order of numbers both forwards and backwards; the days of the week; or song lyrics in a language that is not their mother tongue. Call-and-response songs fit into this subtype, where you sing and they sing something back to you.

Memory training is a crucial part of early learning. Many memory songs learned in childhood last a lifetime.

Search for Memory Songs. Add them to your repertoire folder. Make a playlist of the tracks.

TIP 5.  Rhythm instrument songs.

You will need songs with lyrics that guide the use of rhythm instruments (sometimes called “untuned percussion”) to avoid a cacophony when children play different instruments together. Uncoordinated playing is particularly disruptive to children with sensory overload disorder, and it risks hurting everyone’s ears.

I recommend a series of songs that ignite the imagination—this provides children with a reason to concentrate on each of their rhythm instruments, such as saying their bells represent “sheep” in a song. These action songs for preschoolers about about cause and effect.

Always allocate time at the start for play and exploration. After the short ‘free play’ period, you can suggest playing a specific instrument on your signal.

Search for Rhythm Instrument Songs or find songs with lots of verses such as Old MacDonald Had a Farm. Add them to your repertoire folder. Make a playlist of the tracks.

TIP 6. Melody and harmony instrument songs.

NOTE: You might decide not to include this activity because of the expense of providing each child with a set of chime bars.

These are songs that can be played or accompanied on melody instruments, sometimes called “tuned percussion” (e.g., chime bars, resonator bells, xylophones). Again, you should allow plenty of playtime and exploration before expecting children to follow suggestions for playing specific sounds, differentiated by letter name or colour.

In the early stages of exploring tuned percussion, children won’t be able to play the “right note at the right time.” However, this isn’t a problem. Why? Because if you choose simple pentatonic songs, the gentle sounds children produce freely will sound lovely and bring great joy.

Over time, most children become more particular about the sequence of notes they decide to play. Some, especially around age five, will even be able to play the melody by reading and following letter-name notation charts. Their actions match the song’s melody exactly by this stage.

Search for Melody and Harmony Instrument Songs or Pentatonic Songs. Add them to your repertoire folder. Make a playlist of the tracks.

TIP 7.  Drama and movement songs.

Oh, what fun, it’s horsie time!  We do this every session, that is, every week, and it’s a favourite whether we’re using hobby horses or simply tucking scarves into our waistbands as pretend tails.

Our music gets faster and faster with each repeated chorus. Their actions match the song’s tempo. This is an excellent activity for practicing spatial awareness and for being able to stop the whole body when the ears hear the music stop.

Other kinds of drama and movement songs make use of props and/or actions to dramatise the lyrics. This way, the children are physically and emotionally engaged, allowing them to deepen their understanding of the lyrics. Often, this is the sort of activity that children want to do again and again! Touching props and making use of furniture gives them an embodied experience that is pleasurable and grounding.

Search for Drama and Movement Songs or find songs with a funny or exciting story. Add them to your repertoire folder. Make a playlist of the tracks.

TIP 8. Games and dance songs.

These social movement activities have simple, set steps. Not only are they achievable, but they are often quite magical, especially when enough adults help the children hold hands to keep the circle in shape or ensure that partner-dancing goes smoothly.

It is worth persisting with dancing with young children so that you can have the pleasure of witnessing the moment when two or more spontaneously dance together during free time. This kind of dance releases pure joy.

Search for Dance Songs and Game Songs (e.g.Dr. Knickerbocker). Add them to your repertoire folder. Make a playlist of the tracks.

3. ‘Play Songs or Action Songs for Preschoolers, Toddlers and Babies

That’s it — I’ve outlined a range of activities to cover much of the music learning your children gain from listening to and singing action songs for preschoolers also known as ‘play songs’.

I hope you have enjoyed exploring ‘Action Songs for Preschoolers; * More Tips for Music and Movement Programs’.

If you found this helpful, please let me know. If you find a point of dispute, I’d love to hear that too.

What’s Next?

In the next post, I’ll discuss five more types of activities to use with calming songs and lullabies.

Meanwhile, to see some written activities and hear some play songs, you can download a free lesson plan from either our preschool program, Sing and Play, or our Toddler Program, Bounce and Sing. Click on the one you want:

Surprise Surprise, Free Preschool Music Lesson Plan

My Hands and Fingers, Free Toddler Music Lesson Plan.