A Week of Music!

Skip the gab, Rachel! Give me the sauce!

I was looking forward to this week for awhile. Chris and I have always felt that Vicky was a more musical baby than most. She started laughing early at Fitness Marshall videos. Her favorite songs were “Cake” and “Bubble Butt”. What can I say? She has impeccable taste!

I learned that the month of March was NAfME’s (National Association for Music Education) “Music in Our Schools” month. I couldn’t think of a better time to do these activities! I wanted to start the week with Vicky experiencing live music. The first thing I did was call up a good friend who lived in New York City. Through the power of FaceTime and my concert pianist friend, Vicky was able to listen to Bach’s Minuet in G Major live. Watching her chubby little hands clap with delight let me know this was going to be a good week.

Now just so we are clear, this week is not the only week that I incorporate music into our day. I usually have Amazon Music on in the background most of the day, playing Elmo’s greatest hits or 1000 variations of Baby Shark. However, this week I really focused in on music and how Vicky interacted with it

Supplies Needed

• Melissa and Doug Band-in-a-Box (any instrument set will do and for the record we bought secondhand)
• Mason jars and assorted fillers
• stickers

Total Cost: roughly $4.00

The Plan

Reading: A Royal Lullabyhullaballoo

This book has been a favorite in our family for decades! I remember reading it to my young nephews almost 20 years ago. I fell in love with the story and the rhythmic flow of the words. I knew when I started planning this week that this would be the book!

Nursery Rhyme: Where is Baby? This nursery rhyme set to the tune of “Where is Thumbkin” was found at Scholastic’s website. The website is also a good resource for other music activities that might not be mentioned here.

Words: Music Quiet Loud

The choices of these words were very intentional. I don’t know about your toddler, but Vicky likes to shriek. I was really hoping that we could start reinforcing our “inside voice”. We have made some modest progress, I would say.

Visual Aid: I designed four printables with pictures and titles that matched our Melissa and Doug instrument set. I wanted to be able to point at the word and the corresponding picture, and then actually use the instrument I was referring to.

Sensory Play: Oh boy! This was my favorite! As if I needed another excuse to buy more mason jars! I grabbed four mason jars and filled each one with rice, pasta, coins, and corn flakes. I was slightly concerned about her ability to break these jars if she dropped them very hard, but I made sure we only played with these jars over carpet.

Fine Motor: I was insanely curious how this activity would pan out. The idea was to have Vicky peel the stickers off and place them on the sheet music I had printed out. It took a few tries, but once I handed her the stickers, she was overjoyed at creating her own sheet music! I figured this also doubled as an art activity.

Gross Motor: We’ve been on an Elmo kick lately. This next activity was inspired by the red monster himself. His YouTube video below always had her dancing, but I worked with her on trying to freeze when the music would stop. It made for a fun activity!

Did you try any of the activities below? Comment and let us know how it went!