Musical Monday II: The Song Experience Game

​Musical Monday Part II is here!  I am desperately trying to make sure that these posts flow from one to the next so that I don’t get ahead of myself.  It is quite difficult for me, though, because I am so excited to talk about this incredible work!

If you missed last week’s Musical Monday post, you can find it here: Musical Monday I

What is a Song Experience Game (SEG)?

In my previous post I mentioned how the work of ETM is built on Song Experience Games (SEGs). The songs for the games come from English folksongs.  There are games for oldie, but goodies such as “Looby Loo”, “The Farmer in the Dell”, “A-Hunting We Will Go”, and “Oats, Peas, Beans.”

The Song Experience Game often includes:

• Singing
• Movement
• Dance
• Drama
• Storytelling

In her book, Aesthetic Foundations for Thinking Part I Mary Helen Richards mentions that the SEGs of ETM are meant to create an aesthetic experience which build an “aesthetic foundation for living.”  I think that notion is a wonderfully brilliant and fulfilling way to live one’s life - to find joy and to soak in the beauty, awe, and wonder in the happenings that inspire and excite us.

Discovery and Wonder

In the fall, I continuously played a SEG called “Come Along and Walk with Me” with my Tales for 2’s and 3’s storytime. The littles stayed near their parents and happily did the actions (clapping, hopping, stomping, etc) while their grownups sang and moved with them.  One day, they all decided that it was time to leave the safety of their caregiver so that they could participate in following me around the room! We crawled, rolled, creeped, and twisted our way around the room. There were smiles, giggles, and belly laughs. There was discovery and wonder.  In moments like these, I am reminded of how powerful singing, playing, and moving can really be.

What brought us to that fabulous moment?
Children’s librarians and educators already know the power of repetition.  For the littles in my storytime, they had been soaking up and internalizing the language of the song.  Their little brains were making sense of the song. Even though they weren’t following me around the room, they were still participating.  As they participated in the safety net of their caregivers, they worked on internalizing the song. They sang the words, they saw the actions, the heard the words, and they felt the movement.

Why SEGs?

The SEGs are designed to develop a child’s ability to listen and hear.  It is an oft repeated phrase in ETM that “children are in their bodies before they are in their heads.”  Children need to be concrete before they can be abstract.  

The more we sing and play in storytime, the more opportunities a child has to develop rich experiences in becoming a farmer or a dog or knowing what prancing and creeping look like because they have internalized those motions.

Think of it this way: when we ask them to read the word “glide” they will know what the word glide means because they have experienced gliding across the storytime room.  The SEGs are better than any flashcard, app, or workbook.  

We play, sing, and move in storytime so that they can

• rhyme
• read
• write

Imagine a world full of lifelong readers because they played, sang, and moved in storytime as children.  

That’s the goal:  to reclaim playtime for children -  because that is what they are designed to do.