Open Play-based Groups
For pre-schools and primary schools
Musical play is a fun and motivating way for tamariki to explore and develop many core skills. In the free-play environment, children have the agency to select whether to participate in musicking or not, and to choose how long they participate for. Children also have the freedom to choose whether to play on their own or make music with others. Making music on your own can be a creative and rewarding experience in itself, but music is often more fun with friends!
In a free-play environment, a skilled music therapist or musician is able to provide a musical framework for children’s play which is both responsive and grounding. It can help children to synchronise rhythmically with each other and provide scaffolded support for specific children in the group at the same time.
November 2024 Learning story
Maraeroa Kindy is a small but vibrant kindergarten located in Cannons Creek, Eastern Porirua. The kaiako encourage tamariki to have agency over their learning, empowering them to follow their interests and be creative. They also emphasise the importance of family and social connection, supporting tamariki in learning how to build positive relationships.
The Little Musical Caravan was engaged to enrich the musical play onsite at Maraeroa and offer music therapy support to some of their neurodivergent tamariki within an open group. Our child-led and play-based approach is a great fit for Maraeroa and we have thoroughly enjoyed working alongside their Kaiako.
To illustrate our child-led scaffolding of musical play, we wrote a learning story based on a ‘snapshot’ from a session in November 2024. There is significant overlap between the learning strands of Te Whāriki, the Early Childhood curriculum, and potential music therapy direction. In this learning story we have focussed on mana whenua, belonging, and mana reo, communication, but music is really well placed to support development in all five of the Te Whāriki strands. As we work in a neuro-affirming way, we frame this story as an example of developing authentic social connection as children explore ways of relating and caring for others.
Learning Story: “I want to play guitar!”
Using music to develop communication skills and create a sense of belonging
With the ākonga at Maraeroa Kindergarten and the Little Musical Caravan’s Liz Langham, NZ Registered Music Therapist.
Liz: I walk into the kindy, instruments swinging off my shoulders and my guitar slung across my back. I am barely through the doorway before several childern start rushing towards me… I come at the same time every week and they know what to expect – musical fun together!
I barely have time to sit down and already a cluster of children have gathered around me. Some children have a very clear idea of what they want to do and quickly grab different instruments. Others usually take a while to observe before drawing closer. This morning, however, there is something magnetic about the guitar and I have three children all wanting to play it – on their own! Right now! Me first!
One is trying hard to strum the strings, another is placing their hand over the strings to stop the sound. The third child is looking on with curiosity, clearly wanting to join in but not sure how best to do so. Ah… this is a challenge for all of us to negotiate…
You can read the full story here: Learning story pdf or Learning story docx.