Findings

Children do know a lot of things, especially about songs. They can commit themselves to cooperate for a common goal. They revealed their way of thinking, by connecting and combining their knowledge and experience in a collective effort for a common result. I found myself in the position to reconsider and think over my role as a teacher in order to intervene as little as possible in the learning procedure of children, have more trust in their creativity and encourage them in many ways.

I observed that children themselves gained satisfaction and joy not only from the result but also during their effort, although at the beginning one of them expressed its difficutly “I cannot sing”. But as the procedure went on, the words  “We can” appeared (e.g. if we can find more words for our song) and when I asked them to make a song they said “We will make it, together we will sing it”. They also remembered the song  the following days and wanted to do it again.

Their way of thinking was loudly expressed with phrases like : “Our brain, that’s me” sang a child and another said: “rhythm is made with words” and then he reconsidered and said “with words, ney (baaa)…..no it isn’t” and another,  when trying to answer what a sound is, said: “Aaa, that’s difficult, very difficult”.

Some children were processing the new information in their minds and then they proposed something that referred to a previous matter, some others kept reminding me something they said and some were making language connections (e.g. instruments of music and gymnastics).

Conclusively, the children said that a song is: rhythm, dance, notes, instruments, voice, words, melodies but they also referred to the prerequisites of a song creation that is, quiet and patience.  They gave certain examples of songs mainly the “Feggaraki mou lampro” (my little shiny moon) and some others.

They also tried to match the endings of the words (the rhyme):

γλυκειά– θάλασσα– κούκλα, καλή– πολύ– κουκλί  (η, υ, ι,  sound the same in Greek, like a bee), λαμπρό – παράδεισο.

The music chosen by the chidren of the different groups, for both their songs was the same as “Feggaraki mou Lambro”, which, during the personal interviews was sang by 11 from 22 children, showing how previous experience is used in a new frame.

My role was to make frequent questions, to write down words and ideas, tο sum up, to remind and ask them to clarify the meaning of their ideas by encouraging them to give examples (to make a rhythm, a melody, a movement etc).

I also added some new words like sound, music, words, which made, in my opinion, understanding easier and the procedure go forward. I intervened more when I insisted on the clarification of some words, when I overpassed some childrens’ ideas in order to go faster or when I sensed that children were getting tired.

The procedure was completed when I asked if the song was ready and they said “Yes it’s ready” or “No, no we don’t want to any more”.

The procedure concluded when I asked the children to draw their song: “Paschalitsa” (the ladybug). They drew the context of the song, that is the ladybug, and water in different forms , although the song was referring to the sea. In general, the ladybug was climbing high, or eating something and they also tried to write down the words of the song and some kind of symbols. The same happened with “Asteraki”, which went downwards and upwards according to the lyrics.

In detail : A song is

Rhythm, Dance, instruments (drums, guitars, violin, maraca, piano).”When drums play we dance”.

“Notes are something you do not say when you write a song”, “του του του του”

Rhythm is: different sounds that children did without referring to the word sound: “τσς τσς τσς τσς”,  instruments (which they kept asking for and which I gave them) and movements (which theυ showed) of the hands or the legs up and down or left and right or hitting the floor, a rhythmic beat on the bench, clapping with their hands.

Dance is: Movements they showed. “The difference between music and song is to dance”.  “Walking and dancing is not the same thing”.

But I noticed that, although children consider dance a basic element  of a song , they did some movements only after I asked them what is rhythm and dance .

Sounds are:  sounds with our mouth: «Ααααα …, τι κολι τινι τίνι καντζ, τάκι τάκι”, “music”, words : “I am a cat»,  voice, instrutments,  melody:  «Τι να να να να να να».

The song has also words: “It is a song because the child sings, it has a voice”.

Talking is not the same with singing and they made a melody. “We do not talk”, “we have fun and say words of songs”, “words are when we talk”, “we say combinations that match”, “we sing it for a long time”, “we put words into it”, “we say words slower”,” we don’t stop singing”, “we do it differently than we talk”.

The songs made by the two different groups of children were:

«Η πασχαλίτσα» “Paschalitsa (the ladybug) and «Το Αστεράκι» “Asteraki” (the little star).

Both songs started from a word said by a child: “πασχαλίτσα» , «Αστεράκι». Gradually, children kept proposing other words, from which not all were used while we repeated singing and trying to combine them. I intervened when I asked “where did the butterfly put the star?” and then a child said into “paradise” (in English), a word that I translated  into Greek. Both songs were sung accompanied by instruments.

Η πασχαλίτσα και το Αστεράκι – YouTube

Conclusion

It has been an exciting experience for me  to watch thoughts and ideas springing form the minds of children and my struggle to keep up and find ways to support but not to restrain. I also felt a sense of community developing as the word “we” was appearing more often.

Focusing on the findings I should point out the great impact of music, which is a substantial and instinctive characteristic of humans, transmitted to people from birth, like the rhyme songs our mothers sing to us “a collection of motley stones and beautiful flowers from which we can make bouquets and a variety of jewels”, as Froebel said and reflect the experience of a certain community of people. Especially songs can develop not only language but also, according to children, cannot be distinguished from dance, and therefore we should create in our classrooms  more opportunities  for children to  sing, dance, play the instruments or exercise their musical interests in general and mainly symbolic movements for representation. And I hope that parents will also feel the same enthusiasm of their children’s abilities and find a way to use songs and music more often in their children lives.