Author Bio: Sharon Novak Please feel free to check out my website at www.musicforkidswithsharonnovak.com. I am also available at times to Skype with your group. https://education.skype.com/users/86614-sharon-novak Check out my two CDs. They are great for classrooms, play groups, and just mommy or daddy and baby time.
Dance With Me: Songs for Young Children
Color Songs: Songs for Children
Please Share!
I probably have one of the most exciting jobs in the world. Well, at least to me it is. I have the privilege of singing with babies, toddlers, preschoolers to young elementary aged children every day. I am not the world’s greatest classical pianist or the most talented rock star, but when I am with my audiences of children, I am a star, like Beyonce.
I sing with young children songs that they know and love along with many songs that I have written just for them. I find that children, particularly young children, enjoy music immensely. I love to see babies dance, toddlers jump up and down, and preschoolers tap a steady beat on a drum, and all of this because they are responding to music, music that they are enjoying. There is nothing more rewarding than to hear babies singing with me or preschoolers singing my songs with me!
Music has so many benefits to people in general. Adults love music that they can sing and dance with, and so do children. This is why I have written songs that are easy for children to sing and songs that invite them to move and dance. When children are involved in my music groups live or through my CDs they are following instructions that they hear me give them in the songs. They are being educated but are having too much fun to know it. They are following directions and moving with the beat of the music. All of this is preparing them for a long career of being educated in the classroom.
The best part of having music with your children is the ability to share special together times. So often we desire those intimate and close moments with our children, but don’t always know how to achieve it. When my song, “Tap, Tap, Tap” invites babies and toddlers to touch their nose, parents are doing it with them.
Singing together is also special together time. All of us as parents have busy schedules and some of us more than other, so being forced to sit down in a mommy or daddy and child music group allows this together time to happen. I find so very often that the biggest part of the success with what I teach is not in the content itself so much as it is the time I am spending with the children. Because they love the special attention that they crave, they beg to have lessons with me or join in my groups. That special personal touch makes all of the difference, and music is a wonderful way to make it happen.
I have been reading about the controversy about structured and formal curriculums in kindergarten classes that are starting to be the norm. I, like many parents, believe that young children learn best through play. We want that play and those games to really teach in order to be beneficial, but make sure they are fun. They will learn so much more and enjoy school.
I smile when I read these things, because I know that my first rule is that it has to be fun! And the best part is, children beg to come back to my classes! When I go to my preschool classrooms, the teachers slowly begin to understand that I want to take time to hear what the children have to say! I am not so much about running a class in a structure that I have planned, but rather letting that structure form on its own as I interact with the children. It works! I am a strong leader who comes in with very loose plans, but because I have a passion for what I do, I am in complete control of the class. I make it very clear to the children that I care very much about them and, of course, there is success!
I encourage every parent and educator to make their times with children fun and meaningful. Always listen to what they say and even to what they are not saying. This is what makes me and my music successful!