Forming the music corner in kindergarten classroom

The house of musical notes






Surely every kindergarten teacher has a personal opinion on how to shape the music classroom corner in terms of functionality and aesthetics, as is the case with all kindergarten classroom corners. However, I would like to express my own opinion, focusing on some elements that I consider necessary to be included in the music corner.


Properly tuned metallophone or xylophone or set of musical bells



I suggest having a separate small table for the music corner, on which metallophone or a xylophone or a set of music bells will be placed. The above musical instruments should be composed only of the eight notes of C major scale (natural scale) and no more, so that the children can initially become familiar with listening to the basic musical notes.

Note that it is very important that these musical instruments be tuned properly. If they are not tuned properly then they have no musical benefit, as it would be a patchwork of irregular sounds. It is often observed that the supply of toy type metallophones does not always meet the correct sound standards. Therefore, before buying the product, we must make sure that it is marked as properly tuned.

The house of musical notes

Music corner
"The house of musical notes" is a kind of table that includes the eight notes of C major scale. To make this, we take a cardboard and draw a house frame and a large stave with the notes inside it (ie the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, as shown in the picture).
We can color each note according to the color of the corresponding metallophone tone bar or the bell and draw an emoticon inside it. At the beginning of the stave we design the G-clef (as the most frequently seen) in a faint frame like a "door" of a "house" entrance. When we have finished, we hang it on the wall, just above the table and just behind the metallophone or the xylophone or the bells.



Creating a story with the house of musical notes

With the above ready, we could create a story and tell it to the children, which would probably be something like this:


Do you see this house?
It's a little weird and different from the houses we know. There is no furniture in it. That is, there are no tables, chairs or beds. There are only five straight large woods, placed one above the other and at equal distances from each other. In fact, due to the similarity of the woods with five lines, we all call them "stave".

Inside the house live eight sisters, the notes!
Each one, entering the house, sits only in its own place. Some rest on a piece of wood, some between two pieces of wood, one of which likes to hang under the first piece of wood, while another found a small piece of wood and placed it separately - just below the large ones - and stays on it. If one enters the house of the notes then he will have the impression that he has visited a bird house, where everyone sits on its own branch. But they are not birds. They are the musical notes! 

Would you like us to visit the house of musical notes to get to know them?
So let's go!
We knock on the door. From inside you can hear:
- Come in! Open it yourself, The "door key" G-clef is on the door. Turn it over and it opens!
- Hello! We have heard a lot about you and we thought of visiting you, to get to know you better.
- Hello, all the notes answered together. Welcome to our house! Each of us has a separate voice. Let us introduce ourselves:
- I'm the C note. Listen to my voice. [With one hand we show the first note on the stave inside the "house", while with the other we hit the corresponding first tone bar on the metallophone. The same goes for the other musical notes]
Reaching the last note:
- Hello! I'm the other C note. They have given me the same name as my first sister, since I look like her. But I live higher, between the 3rd and 4th wood, because I have a thinner voice. Listen to me! Listen to my sister of the same name! [We play the last and the first note on the metallophone respectively]
- Listen to us all together without interruption! [We sing slowly C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C, while at the same time pointing at the stave and playing the metallophone. We repeat the same with the children, until they can sing the succession of the notes on their own. In the second phase, we can sing in reverse, starting from the highest note to the lowest, that is: C-B-A-G-F-E-D-C].


Extensions

The house of notes in combination with the metallophone, are tools that can work throughout the year in various ways, such as:

Introducing some musical notes to start or end an activity: e.g. when we hear the first three notes slowly and steadily on the metallophone (C-D-E), it's time to eat / when we hear the C scale going up (C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C), it's time for a break / when it goes down (C-B-A-G-F-E-D-C), we get ready to start an activity and so on. We can sing the notes at the same time as the metallophone. This will help the children to gradually understand the pitch (tone) of each one.

Music games: e.g. we divide the children of the class into two groups and each one represents a specific note. At the beginning we choose two notes that are far apart from each other, so that they are more easily perceived, such as e.g. the first C note and the last C note of C major scale. When each team hears its note on the metalophone, raises its hands or takes a step or wins a ball, etc. The same game can be played later with different notes or with more groups.


Create a collage with musical instruments by categories

Κολάζ μουσικών οργάνων
This collage can be created gradually with the help of children, making a tribute to one category of musical instruments at a time. Thus, when e.g. we will deal with the violin family, we can watch videos with violin, viola, cello and double bass performers, talk about their history, their characteristics, etc., and at the end cut or color pictures and paste them in the collage. If there are many children in the class, the collage can take the form of individual work, creating a corresponding individual folder of musical instruments.

After the collage is completed, we hang it on the wall, in the music corner.



Common percussion instruments in kindergartens

I left this topic last, since percussion instruments such as maracas, tambourines, castanets, etc. are usually found in most kindergartens. I suggest that these instruments be added to the music corner gradually, since the special characteristics of each are presented (eg how we produce the sound, what materials they are made of, how we protect them from damage, how we store them, etc.).