Next week on 21 June it’s World Music Day! Let’s use this time as a reminder to incorporate more music, more often in early childhood settings as well as in life!

Most of us recognise music as something to enjoy. Whether it’s listening to your favourite songs, moving your body to music, learning or playing an instrument or singing at the top of your lungs, many people simply love having music in their lives.

Beyond this, from a developmental and wellbeing perspective, there are many fundamental benefits of music. Incorporating music into children’s early years has the power to enhance the way they learn, grow and express themselves now and well into the future.

When we consider just how fun music is, combined with its ability to optimise learning and development, including music in children’s education and exploration even as young as babies, makes perfect sense.

Here are just a few top benefits of music that children can experience:

Advanced ability to express themselves

Music is a universal language, and as the saying goes ‘Where words fail, music speaks’. Giving children music as a tool enables them to access another way of expressing themselves. Music can convey moods and feelings, tell stories and tap into creativity too.

Greater concentration

Research has shown that music interventions have a positive impact on children’s concentration and attention. For some, listening to music while they are undertaking another task drowns out distractions and helps them to focus. For others, the engaging act of participating in music can enable them to concentrate and learn. Music’s power in developing better concentration can go on to help them in many other areas of their development too.

Increased confidence

Learning to sing all the words of a song or learning to play an instrument – either way, the act of learning music is a sure-fire way to help children to gain confidence in their ability to take on new skills. 

Development of motor skills

Where there’s music, there’s movement and while learning an instrument is fantastic for hand-eye coordination, there’s a lot to be said for the combination of singing and movement to go with the song. 

Many songs tell stories not only through lyrics but through actions too.

Enhanced memory

Ever had a song stuck in your head? Most of us have. Music has a habit of helping us remember concepts and facts. You can add a highly effective learning technique to any subject matter by incorporating it into a song. In fact, many of our Bonkers Beat songs do just that!

There are plenty of reasons to incorporate music into every day for children — at Bonkers Beat we make it simple for centres to do just that with our tried and tested songs that children love.

Make it your centre’s goal to bring more music into children’s worlds this World Music Day and beyond!

If you need some help harnessing the power of music for your early childhood service, reach out. Here is the access to the program and free resources for you to bring more music into your centre, visit www.bonkersbeat.com/programs/