Musical Warm Ups for Primary School Children

Posted by in childrens songs, education, primary school songs, Songs for Schools

Using Musical Activities to Get Your Class in Gear

Effective learning requires enthusiasm, motivation and focus. Unfortunately, there are bound to be times when your class just isn’t feeling it. Morning blues, post-lunch fatigue and pre-home time anticipation can all cause children to become disinterested and irritable. These musical warm ups for primary school children will help engage them mentally and physically, enabling them to concentrate better on the teaching material in hand.

Why Choose Musical Warm Ups?

The benefits of musical warm ups for primary school children are innumerable. According to linguists, rhythm is integral to language recognition from a very early age – perhaps even before birth – and certainly before children begin to differentiate between the speech sounds themselves. Other studies have detected an inherent relationship between mathematical and musical processing. Plus, almost all children love rhymes, which in themselves contribute to cognitive, social, emotional, motor and language development.

Moreover, have you ever come across a child (or an adult, for that matter) who doesn’t enjoy music in some form or other? Music is proven to generate a natural physiological response, which explains why it plays such a large part in our lives. It’s a failsafe tool for getting children’s attention at the beginning of the lesson, enabling you to proceed with the benefit of their full concentration.

Musical Warm Ups for Primary School Children

There are plenty of great resources providing musical warm ups for primary school children.  For example, Sing Up, a not-for-profit organisation providing free musical resources for teachers, has a great range of vocal warm-ups that will help get you started.

Pick out your favourites and have them at hand for whenever they’re needed – at the beginning of a lesson, on a school trip, during assembly – and any other time you feel your class is in need of a boost. Keep it interesting by instructing children to sing quietly at first, then loudly, then slowly, then quickly, then in silly voices.

Enhance musical warm ups with actions – either make up your own, or pick out a book of action songs for primary school children to get them moving. This will warm your class up both physically and mentally, enabling them to concentrate better on the subject matter in hand.

You could even incorporate educational primary school songs into your core lesson plan – Out of the Ark has some great educational songs for young children covering a wide range of topics, from numeracy and literacy to the Great Fire of London.

Last but not least, make sure you show plenty of enthusiasm. You may not be the next Elvis or Aretha, but that’s fine: all that matters is that you present the vocal warm ups and songs in an engaging, lively manner, and the rest will follow.I Love Maths

Out of the Ark supplies a wide range of song books containing musical warm ups for primary school children. Each one comes with lyrics, musical scores and CDs containing backing and vocal tracks. Go to www.outoftheark.co.uk to browse the full range and order online for delivery.