Starting Music Lessons with a 1 Year Old: 13 Music Activities for Babies

Starting Music Lessons with One Year Olds

Whether they’re bumping on their bottom or shaking out their sillies, one year olds love music! Check out these 13 music activities that will keep your little one musically engaged this summer!

1. Shake, shake, shake
Babies love to shake anything that makes noise! So, why not create some musical shakers?! They are super easy to make and will entertain your little one for quite awhile! Just fill a small container/bottle with some rice or beans and then secure the lid with super glue or tape. Try filling other containers with different objects to show the difference in sound. You can also attach ribbons to your shakers. Take a look at this DIY Rainbow Sensory Bottle! This one is filled with poms poms, but you can also fill it with rice or beans as suggested!

2. Instrument Petting Zoo
Gather some rhythm band instruments and lay them out for your little one to hear all the different sounds! Allow them to play on their own and then let them listen as you play. Here’s the rhythm band set we recommend!

3. Music and Movement
Put on some fun children’s music and turn it up! Babies love to dance! Whether they are dancing on their feet or bumping on their bottoms, babies know how to feel the music. One of my favorite children’s artists is Raffi because his songs are fun, silly, and energetic! Throw in some shakers and ribbons for even more fun!

4. Sing to your Child
Singing to your child is so easy and fun! Find some songs that have hand motions and get your baby involved. They might not be able to sing the words just yet, but they definitely can learn some hand motions!

5. Pot and Pan Drumming
If you need something for baby to do while you’re trying to prepare dinner, pull out some pots and pans for them to bang on! Give them a wooden spoon, and they’ll be all set for their very first percussion solo!

6. Play High C and Low C
Put the high C bell and the low C bell in front of your baby. Let them play with both bells so they can hear the difference between high and low!

7. High Information Music

Introduce your child to music from Nuryl, which is an app you can download to your phone, and contains curated musical selections specifically for them! Nuryl’s music is designed to enrich your child’s sense of pitch and harmony. Via www.nuryl.com:

How Does Nuryl work?
We use a highly complex form of music, we call High Information Music™, to jumpstart your baby’s brain development. The Nuryl catalog features one-of-a-kind musical pieces specifically designed with this task in mind. At Nuryl, we integrate these musical pieces into daily lessons using the exact same method that our Co-Founder Rick Beato used with his son Dylan starting at 5 months prenatal. The results with Dylan and following children have been astounding.

What is High Information Music?
High Information Music™ is a unique type of complex, unpredictable, and highly melodic music designed to simultaneously activate multiple regions of your baby’s brain during a critical learning period, from the fifth month of pregnancy to your baby’s second birthday. During this time, your baby’s brain is rapidly growing, nerve cells are reaching out and making billions of new connections (over 700 new connections per second in the first year alone!); connections that are stimulated will stick around while under-stimulated connections are lost, never to be formed again. And it is all based on experience. Consider the complex process of language and fluency. Your baby comes into this world open and ready to learn the sounds of any language. But within only 6 to 8 months they begin to focus solely on the sounds of their native language, laying a foundation of neural networks, establishing fluency. Their brains know it. Just like language, becoming musically fluent takes repetition, internalization, decoding and recall to learn. High Information Music™ uses thousands of combinations of complex intervals, harmonies and motifs to truly teach a baby native fluency. The concept of our music immersion curriculum is to stimulate and strengthen these same neural connections associated with other cognitive abilities and possibly supercharge your baby’s early brain development. Although music is the catalyst, we have witnessed the benefits in enhanced attention span, improved memory, stronger reasoning, and a greater predisposition to learn languages.

8. DIY Baby Guitar
This is such a neat DIY instrument! All you need is a loaf pan and rubberbands to create a little guitar! Check out Laughing Kids Learn for all the instructions.

9. Sing Along with Books
Reading to your baby so is important, but singing is too! And there are so many children’s books that you can sing to your baby. Here’s a list of sing along picture books for toddlers at Goodreads!

10. Bells for Daily Routines
Your one-year-old may not be able to play along with the Prodigies bell videos quite yet, but you can still use the bells at home in your daily routines! Set up a C bell at your diaper changing station and play that bell whenever you have to do a diaper change. Place a D bell at mealtime and play it during lunch (though you may want to play it for them to avoid a “baby food covered” bell)! Put an E bell on their play mat and have them play it during playtime. Since there are 8 bells, you could set them up in 8 different locations. Or, you could set all of them up together on your baby’s play mat instead. The idea is to start getting those pitches into their minds through everyday play! Visit our site at preschoolprodigies.com for more information on desk bells and the Prodigies music curriculum!

11. Mommy and Me Music Class
Check your area for some local Mommy and Me music classes! Libraries usually offer free music classes once a week. Also, there may be a Gymboree program in your area which is great for music and movement!

12. DIY Dance Rings
You can easily make some dance rings by using shower curtain hooks and ribbons! Check out these rainbow dancing rings at Buggy and Buddy!

13. Jingle Bell Bracelets and Anklets
These ankle bells from Buggy and Buddy are the perfect music activity for your little one! Just grab a pipe cleaner and attach some jingle bells! Wrap it around their ankle or wrist and let them jingle, jingle, jingle! Just be sure to stay close as those bells are small and round!