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Keep reading to see 5 Reasons Why I use an iPod for all of our music! Music is a cornerstone of our program. We start the day with music and movement (wake-up) and we use music to introduce fun concepts, like greetings, body parts, pet names/sounds. We use music to clean-up and to transition between activities. We have music playing in the background during free-choice time. We often catch a child singing or moving to a song while building with blocks or cooking in housekeeping. We use music to introduce story concepts and integrate themes. I LOVE the kid songs and find myself humming a catchy tune while cooking dinner or in the shower! Makes me laugh when I realize I’m humming or singing “5 Green and Speckled Frogs”!
With all the music choices in early childhood, where do you start? I remember coming into the pre-k setting from resource and looking through the CDs in the room. CDs like Greg and Steve, Raffi, the Wiggles, and so many more! I had no idea which songs were good or what the kids would like.
I certainly had no idea that music could be used in the classroom for anything more than movement with instruments, fingerplays, quiet lullabies during rest or teaching nursery rhymes. Why are there so many CD’s and endless songs to choose from? Why couldn’t there just be one CD with ALL of the favorites and a guide for this new teacher to know “when” to play “what”?
Looking through all of the songs I started to see a theme. There were the basic nursery rhymes (London Bridge, One Two Buckle My Shoe, Old MacDonald Had a Farm) including the traditional fun finger plays (Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, Five Green and Speckled Frogs) and then there were songs that introduced Colors, Shapes, Counting, Body Parts and more. OK, now my creative juices are flowing and I start writing down songs to go with different times of the day. This is fun!
However, keeping all of the CD’s next to the boombox each day and switching between them became tedious! Not to mention the need to keep things moving to sustain attention and keep the excitement.
One day, after a particularly crazy fail during music where I couldn’t find the right CD and several kids began creating chaos, I decided to do something different!
I bought an iPod and took all the CD’s home to download them onto it. I have NEVER regretted that decision!!
I now use an iPod that is FULL of our songs. I’ve downloaded every CD we had and continue to add them as I find great songs! Our latest songs are SUPER SIMPLE SONGS. I don’t remember the exact moment I heard the Super Simple Songs, but I do remember “who” introduced them to our class. Our fabulous speech assistant, Leah, played a few songs and I remember initially thinking they were slow, simple, and silly. (Duh, Super SIMPLE!) I wasn’t very impressed until I saw the kids respond!
The song “One Little Finger” was one of those songs. I rolled my eyes and then couldn’t believe my eyes! The kids were following along, following directions, pointing to various body parts and singing! (as much as they could). WOW! They learned a few body parts AND Up and Down in less than 5 minutes!
Click the link above to see the Youtube video. Watch it and you’ll understand the eye rolling, but hopefully, you can imagine how kids would respond positively! Watch them all, seriously addicting! OK, maybe just addicting for an early childhood teacher who loves music. 🤣
The first DAY of school, with 3 yr old kids who have various “abilities”, I played music. It stopped the crying, made them forget they missed their mom for a few moments, got the attention of the most distracted child, and united us. To say that music is really the backbone of our program is NO exaggeration. I introduced animals, animal sounds, yes/no and making choices, all through music during the first week of school. PLUS Wheels on the Bus, the Clean-Up song, and greeting songs.
5 Reasons I now use an iPod in the classroom
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Quick music selection – Organize the songs however you like – just like a filing system. I have Kid Songs, Super Simple Songs, Animal Songs. That’s just my list for school. I have found this works the best for me because I am now familiar with Super Simple Songs and play them a lot! I’ve sorted through the songs relating to animals because I also choose at least one of them for each theme. Other categories you might want: Holidays, Songs with objects (bean bag, shakers, ribbons), Greetings. You decide how things best fit your room and I promise you will be able to scroll through and start a new song in seconds instead of minutes!
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A cleaner, more organized area in music! No more CD cases stacked up, empty cases next to boombox, or CD’s laying all over because we didn’t have time to put them back into the correct case. Who doesn’t like less clutter? I was so tired of the look of that area but I couldn’t have the CD’s hidden away because we needed them easily accessible. Many teachers at my school have stacks of CD cases, empty cases scattered and CD’s laying out (sometimes on the floor next to the boombox). We all have a tub of bean bags, musical instruments, ribbons, sticks, and shakers in the area also, which can get overwhelming. Why not consolidate and tidy up the things that we can control?
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Less downtime between songs! This is huge! There is nothing more frustrating than popping out the current CD, finding the next CD and looking to see what # the song(s) are that you want to play, putting that CD in the player and waiting for it to initialize. Pushing play, hitting the forward button to get to the correct song and waiting for it to get there. Just watch the impatient fidgeting, touching, jumping up and talking that happens in this lag time. Even when I had sticky notes on the cases, cases stacked in the order I needed them and got pretty quick clicking through to the correct song – there was an easy 2 minute lag time. 2 minutes is an eternity for kids, especially for preschoolers! A lot of behaviors can happen in that time! Many times it was longer than 2 minutes before the correct song began playing! Disaster! Now I can scroll through my iPod and play songs in seconds! With a little planning I can even take the iPod and arrange songs into playlists that go with our theme and label them – By week (Week 1, 2 etc.) or by Month (Aug, Sept, etc.) or by theme (Back to school, All about me, Colors, Fall, etc.) and access them even quicker. Have I mentioned how much I like our music on the iPod?
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Less Expensive! Teachers have enough expenses! I did already have some CD’s, but as I wanted new songs I had to go on Amazon or to the store to find it and buy a whole CD for one or two songs! I basically went without those fun songs when my personal spending on the classroom reached a crazy high. With the iPod, even with the initial cost (I wanted one anyway) and a docking station that keeps it charged and has amazing speakers, I have saved $!
I have had the same iPod for years!
I feel good about not wasting money on a whole CD when I only want 1 song. Now, if I only want a song or two I can purchase for .99 or sometimes get them free. Music changes, new songs come out, and now I can stay up to date!
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I download audiobooks. Pete the Cat, I Love My White Shoes or School Shoes just isn’t the same without the music! It’s amazing how attention increases when you switch up reading the story with listening to it. We read the same story for a few weeks so this is really a life-saver. This full set of Pete books/cd’s is a great deal!
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Comment and tell me if you have ever heard the Super Simple songs, what you do for music in your room and if you use CD’s, a Smartboard or an iPod.
Quickly playing a song, deciding last minute to switch up the planned songs and adding in unplanned songs would not have been as easy if I didn’t have my music on the iPod!
