For children to play with sounds is very funny and at the same time also very stimulating for their growth.
Some scientific studies show that a proper education to listen can help them to develop imagination and creativity, to increase capacity for concentration and attention, to exercise memory. Moreover, at relational level, playing with the voice, with everyday objects that produce sounds, sing nursery rhymes, strengthens interpersonal ties (with adults and peers).
Since early age it is important to put music in the house, listening songs and nursery rhymes, to sound easy instruments or improvised objects as well as recording the voices and other sounds and then listening to them again. It is essential to maintain moments of silence, thus creating an atmosphere of suspension in which the child can wait for the beginning of the story, of the song or of a sound while he prepares to listen.
In this regard the new shuffle function of Ocarina, by activating a random reproduction of the audio tracks, adds an element of unpredictability that always renews the emotion of the game. In this way the breaks become moments of stimulating “surprise effect”, during which children repeat, invent and develop their creativity.
There are several games to play individually or in groups that children can do with Ocarina:
– Try to listen to recorded sounds and to recognize the source: sounds of nature, animal voices, ambient noises and so on. For the little ones it will be fun to listen to a sound like the voice of an animal or the noise of an engine and play to guess the source: “the roar is the lion’s call”; “this is the noise of the tractor “… You can also ask to identify similar sounds and look for “this sound is like…”
– Reproduce short rhythmic sequences and invite the children to repeat them. Also make the children listen to the 7 musical notes by singing them back and forth and recognizing them.
– Listen to several songs and then pick the favorite one. Try to play it together several times until you learn it.
– Reproduce a music theme and invite the children to draw and color freely with sheets and pencils
– Take Ocarina outdoors and listen to music lying silently on the grass. Invite the children to express the music they listen to with free movements of the body. Invite the children to tell the music they have heard in pictures. Invite the children to invent a short story about the music they are listening to.
– Propose the traditional “game of chairs”: set up as many chairs as there are players, minus one (for example seven players and six chairs). Start the music and then suddenly interrupt it. Children will start walking in circles or dancing. When the music is interrupted the players must try to sit down as soon as possible. One of the participants remains without a chair and is eliminated. The game is repeated until there is a player who will then be the winner.
– Finally, a last simple game: invite the children to record their voice and then listen to it again … they will have a lot of fun!
These are just some games that can be invented with sounds. Surely there are many others … Do you have more ideas, proposals or experiences? We would be happy to read them! You can share these with us by writing to [email protected]
