Young children (and parents of young children) instantly recognize the “Happy” song by Pharrell Williams. We feel happy and can’t help but “clap along.” We love this version:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ4diEohODE[/youtube]
You clapped along, too, didn’t you? It’s easy for adults to acknowledge the “feeling” of happy in the song. However, young children must learn to identify feelings such as happy, sad, angry, scared, surprised, etc. In fact, being able to recognize and label feelings contributes to social-emotional development.
Kindermusik@Home Activity to Help Young Children Identify Feelings
Learning to relate facial expressions with emotions is important just before and during the early school years. For example, when a friend is feeling angry, her face might scrunch up or her eyes might close. When a friend is feeling sad, he might cry or put his head down. If children are going to learn empathy for others, they need to first learn to identify how other people are feeling. Try this sample activity, “How Do You Feel?” from Kindermusik@Home:
Singing Together and Social-Emotional Development
Research shows that when children actively participate in group music and movement activities it supports development in all seven areas of social-emotional development, including communication, relatedness, and cooperativeness.