Setting Up Your Music Sessions? Here's Where to Start

Two year old playing with glockenspiel- Early Years Music

Setting Up Your Music Sessions? Here's Where to Start. Set up music sessions at home in 15 minutes. A simple 10-basket guide for parents, home educators and nannies, plus free printable labels

Hi,

If you're a home educator, parent, family member, nanny or professional carer, you need your own music learning space. And when it comes to Music this doesn't need to be more complicated than it is. So let me help you to set up Your Music Sessions.

Here's Where to Start.

Set up music sessions at home in 15 minutes. This simple 10-basket guide for parents, home educators and nannies, plus free printable labels

You create the environment that enables each child to learn- Montessori

Music environments are no different. It needs to be focused, clear and easy to use every time, so that when you decide to have your 15-minute musical boost, you're ready to go.

Even when you’re out and about, it pays to organize a little basket and take it along with you. Remember the sound buttons? Check out our Reel (LINK TO REEL)

In my Monomodal Music Learning approach, every session can begin from one of three places: music from the Body (movement), music from the Heart (the song and how it feels), or music from the Mind (thinking, listening and noticing).

Whichever way you start, the setup is the same. Your room should make complete sense to you and to the children you work with, whatever their age, stage of development or musical aptitude. Please bear in mind that in the arts, age doesn’t always correlate with developmental age.

This quick guide shows you how to organise your resources, basket by basket as a starting point in committing to doing more music in the home as a super learning tool.

Setting Up Your Music Sessions? Here's Where to Start -Start with what you already have

Please don’t spend more than you have to: money or/time.

Hunt around the house for baskets, buckets, trays and boxes you no longer use. Recycling them keeps costs close to zero. Containers also do three jobs at once:

• You always know where everything is.

• Labels turn tidy-up into a learning game.

• Children love to help, and they love to know why things live where they do. Let them label, sort and pack away. It is part of the learning.

• Labels have a cross-curricular element as they learn to spell musical terms

The 10 Music baskets

1. Soft toys Animals, dolls and cars, plus cones, clouds, suns, bushes and even soft "rocks". These are your characters and storytelling friends.

2. Music books: Books about music and instruments (the orchestra, for example), or books with sounds you can use to bring a story to life.

3. Costumes: Capes, boots, shoes, hats, gloves, skirts and scarves linked to a character. It could be a book character, an imaginary one, or simply dressing-up clothes.

4. Balls: Different sizes and different textures. Balls have a special place in our music sessions, so give them the respect they deserve with their own dedicated box.

5. Silent props Soft, musical-movement props that make no sound: small rings, ribbons, scarves and elastic bands. Dice live here too. Label this one "Silent Props".

6. Tuned percussion Anything with a pitch, so it plays a specific high, medium or low note: xylophones, bells, glockenspiels, chimes and tuned tambourines. These are the noisy ones and can be tricky for little hands, so keep this basket on a shelf, out of reach, and bring it out when you're ready.

7. Untuned percussion Child-ready, child-sized instruments with a single sound and no pitch: hand drums, rattles, castanets, claves and wood blocks.

8. Wind instruments Anything that makes sound by blowing: recorders, ocarinas, harmonicas and whistles. Wind instruments are also worth keeping up high. Wash them regularly, and use them only with adult supervision.

9. Movement basket (especially for ages 3 to 5) Toddlers and pre-schoolers are often desperate to move. Fill a basket with placement squares, rings, cones, beanbags and things to throw, so movement is ready whenever the mood strikes.

10. Flashcards and games Musical flashcards (we have our own on the website, or you can print some from Twinkl) and games such as our rhythm bingo. Any card or game that gets children listening, matching and clapping belongs here.

Here’s a visual grid of your Early Years Music basket strategy with props and suggested store, if you prefer:

Grid 1 The 10 Music Baskets-Maria Moon Music CIC - Early Years Music

Tuned percussion- Music Basket Label for Early Years music activities

Setting Up Your Music Sessions? Here's Where to Start

Now let's put it all together

Place the baskets in one specific corner of the room, orderly, well labelled and in the right spots. Keep the loud or fiddly ones high. Keep the everyday ones low, so children can choose and help.

Then you can start planning activities around each child's interests. Your sessions will be as simple or as complicated as you make them, so a few tips:

• Babies: put your thinking into the actions, activities and music you'll use. Lots of repetition, eye contact, gentle movement, and soft toys and scarves.

  
  

• Toddlers (3 to 5): expect lots of movement. Lean on your movement basket, ribbons and balls.

  
  

• Safety note: for children under 3, check every item for small parts and choking hazards, and always supervise.

Grid 2- Five steps to set up your Early Years Music Activity and Grid 3- Choose Your Starting point Ideas for Music Activities from birth to age 6

Untuned percussion- Music Basket Label for Early Years music activities

Start small

You do not need all ten baskets on day one. Begin with just three: soft toys, silent props and untuned percussion. Add one new basket each week and watch your sessions grow naturally.

Want this as a printable page to laminate and label your baskets? Enter your email below and I'll send you the 10-Basket Music Resource Kit. 

It includes:

• Printable basket labels, with and without pictures

• A one-page setup checklist

• A "start small" 3-basket plan

• Five 15-minute session starters, one per day of the week

👉 Here are your first 3 Printable Labels (Just 3 sets of 2 large labels to get you started)

👉 Here are your first 10 Printable Labels (Just 10 sets of smaller labels for a full set up)

You are welcome to share this blog and get someone you know ready to do music too! Afterall sharing is caring.

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Come and experience a session Online in the comfort of your home or if you’re local, in person in Shoeburyness, Southend On Sea.

Thank you for reading my blog till the end!

Speak soon,

Maria

+44 (0) 7742 035 857