Here's a great activity for introducing young children to composing music that's perfect for toddlers and up.
The brightly colored rainbow xylophones that are marketed towards kids just happen to be perfect for this music composition activity. This activity would also be fun to do in the backyard on our homemade rainbow xylophone.
I was inspired by this post on In Lieu of Preschool. I simply used colored dot stickers, a long strip of easel paper, and an xylophone. I had to color some stickers by hand to match the keys found on the xylophone. I used permanent markers on white dot stickers, which only took a few minutes to do.
I taped a strip of easel paper to the table, one for each of the boys. I also gave each boy their own set of stickers. They quickly went to work composing their little masterpieces. I have mini-Mozarts in the making, I think!
Once their compositions were completed, it was time to play what they wrote.
J and K loved this activity, even though there was a small fight over who would play their song first!
So there you have it. A simple way to introduce little ones to the process of music composition. And it's also a great way to reinforce colors and even reading skills.