An effective music program in the elementary schools should be based on a cumulative sequence of musical experiences that will foster continual growth in musical understanding, skills, and knowledge. This book shows how a music program can be organized and suggests teaching procedures that may be used to promote specific musical learnings for students between the ages of 5 and 12.

Children are inherently musical. They respond to music and learn through music. Music expresses children's identity and heritage, teaches them to belong to a culture, and develops their cognitive well-being and inner self worth. As professional instructors, childcare workers, or students looking forward to a career working with children, we should continuously search for ways to tap into children's natural reservoir of enthusiasm for singing, moving and experimenting with instruments. But how, you might ask? What music is appropriate for the children I'm working with? How can music help inspire a well-rounded child? How do I reach and teach children musically? Most importantly perhaps, how can I incorporate music into a curriculum that marginalizes the arts?This book explores a holistic, artistic, and integrated approach to understanding the developmental connections between music and children. This book guides professionals to work through music, harnessing the processes that underlie music learning, and outlining developmentally appropriate methods to understand the role of music in children's lives through play, games, creativity, and movement. Additionally, the book explores ways of applying music-making to benefit the whole child, i.e., socially, emotionally, physically, cognitively, and linguistically.

This annotated anthology documents historical trends and basic findings regarding music in early childhood education, development, and care. The papers in this volume discuss the main research trends of musical engagement with early children, such as music in the family, employing music in child care, and musical skill and development. This collection hopes to stimulate further reflections on the implementation of music in daily practice. The volume represents many facets of research from different cultural contexts and reflects trends and projects of music in early childhood. The findings incorporate a historical perspective with regards to different topics and approaches. The book provides practitioners and researchers of music education, music development, and music psychology, an opportunity to read a selection of articles that were previously published in the journal Early Child Development and Care. Each paper concludes with an annotation note supplied by the principle author addressing how they see their article from the perspective of today.

How do the arts stack up as a major discipline? What is their effect on the brain, learning, and human development? How might schools best implement and assess an arts program? Eric Jensen answers these questions--and more--in this book. To push for higher standards of learning, many policymakers are eliminating arts programs. To Jensen, that's a mistake. This book presents the definitive case, based on what we know about the brain and learning, for making arts a core part of the basic curriculum and thoughtfully integrating them into every subject. Separate chapters address musical, visual, and kinesthetic arts in ways that reveal their influence on learning. What are the effects of a fully implemented arts program? The evidence points to the following: * Fewer dropouts * Higher attendance * Better team players * An increased love of learning * Greater student dignity * Enhanced creativity * A more prepared citizen for the workplace of tomorrow * Greater cultural awareness as a bonus To Jensen, it's not a matter of choosing, say, the musical arts over the kinesthetic. Rather, ask what kind of art makes sense for what purposes. How much time per day? At what ages? What kind of music? What kind of movement? Should the arts be required? How do we assess arts programs? In answering these real-world questions, Jensen provides dozens of practical, detailed suggestions for incorporating the arts into every classroom. Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.