Preschoolers often like to sing. They love songs with repetition and simple melodies. Children can create their own lyrics for familiar songs, and the words often come from events and people around them.

Your child can usually recognize and name favorite songs and sing parts of them. Singing helps children understand the difference between fast and slow, long and short, high and low, loud and soft.

Your child can create actions and dance movements to the music. Other times, you may see them flying like butterflies, crawling like caterpillars, or jumping like frogs.

Moving to music is also great for releasing energy and emotions. For example, your child may jump for joy or stomp his feet in anger.

These ideas can help your child sing, dance, and move creatively:

Make some homemade tools. For example, a pan, a saucepan lid and a wooden spoon can become a drum set. Point out sounds that have a regular rhythm, like a ticking clock or a dripping faucet. Encourage your child to clap, tap, march, or pulse to the beat. Watch short videos of animals making noise and moving in the wild. Your child might make a drum sound like a shuffling elephant or a shaker sound like a slithering snake. Or they might like to dance like a silly monkey.

Listen to the songs Peter and the Wolf or Festival of the Animals, which use the sounds of different musical instruments to represent different animals. Guess which animal the music represents and try to imitate the sound. Sing songs, slogans and rhymes like ‘Incy Wincy Spider’, ‘Heads and Roles’, ‘Frère Jacques’ or ‘The wonky Donkey’. Can’t remember the words? Try our Karaoke Baby.