Learning made fun

Tidy Up Time With Musical Minis

As adults, we often view tidying up as a tedious chore, but for children tidy up time can be highly enjoyable and beneficial for their development.

At Musical Minis, tidy up time happens during each session and the children are encouraged to join in. This aspect of the session is necessary for the children to gain the most out of Musical Minis and to learn new skills. If the instruments and whistles were not tidied during the session, it would feel very chaotic and cluttered. The children would find it difficult to fully explore what was there as they would be over-stimulated. It’s also obviously important to keep things tidy to ensure the children are safe.

Tidy up time is also key for children’s development, specifically their social and emotional progress. By including children in tidying up, you are giving them responsibility and enabling their independence and confidence to grow. They recognise that they have an important role in a collective task. The element of routine and structure tidy up time also provides, allows the children to understand order and gain an idea of predictability. This link is emphasised at Musical Minis through the fact that there is a special tidy up song which enhances the association and often makes it a more enjoyable process.

Tidying up has also been said to support children’s mathematical development due to the element of categorisation it requires. Children quickly learn that different things go in different places which provides an opportunity to sort. At Musical Minis, children are encouraged to sort the different instruments into blowing, shaking and banging.

Although it can often seem like more work to involve children in tidying up, especially when they tidy up too well and tidy the car keys (!!), it is an effort worth making. Once the children are shown how to tidy up effectively, it can save you time and provides an opportunity for the children to learn an important life-skill.

To find out more about Musical Minis in your area please visit the Musical Minis website location page.

Why The Whistling Session At Musical Minis Is So Important

Every week at Musical Minis we have a blowing song as part of our instrumental session.

Blowing whistles is a skill that children take a great delight in learning and so introduce a whole new form of instrument. What begins as an accidental noise soon develops into a controlled sound. With the whistle the child learns to improve control of his/her breathing. To control breath is a skill that singing and blowing will encourage. It helps us to turn words into phrases and sentences.

Breath control is an important tool in controlling stammering and stuttering. A number of children develop this, especially when they're anxious. The skills they learn when blowing a whistle, in directing their breathing to produce a sound, can help overcome these issues.

Being able to control breathing has also been shown to benefit children and adults when they're anxious, frustrated, excited or overwhelmed. By concentrating on their breathing the situation becomes more in their control and the child or adult becomes more confident, therefore enabling them to cope.

Although it can be noisy, with a full class of Musical Minis blowing a whistle, it does have important developmental benefits for the children.

We use whistles that are sterilised after each use. Clean sterilised whistles are given out from one box and after the blowing song the used whistles are collected in another 'dirty' whistle box. Whistles are the only instrument that children do not share as it is important that germs are not passed around.

To find out about Musical Minis in your area click here.