Improvise vocally, exploring different sounds and adapting known songs
Model playful use of known songs, changing words or mixing up phrases/fragments. Encourage children to suggest their own changes and try them out together.
Encourage children to make up their own songs and praise all attempts (no matter how unconventional they are!).
Encourage children to explore how different environments and materials can change the sounds that they make.
Resources can include boxes, cardboard tubes, tents/teepees or scarves to make an area enclosed. Areas with hard surfaces that can be explored include corridors, kitchens, and tunnels in outdoor play areas. Natural materials can be used too (e.g. crunching in autumnal leaves).
Provide access to microphones and other music technology to encourage vocal exploration.
Recordable buttons can be used to capture vocal play.
Use rhymes that require changes in vocal timbre, dynamics, and pitch – e.g. whispering, a giant’s voice, a witch’s voice, tired, excited, grumpy etc. Encourage children to experiment with moving through their natural pitch range, using high, middle and low voices.
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