A few well-chosen props can take you a long way with music classes for young children.  You will acquire other props, whether through whatever small budget you might have, hand-me-downs, your own creativity, or help from a creative mom.  A trip to the toy store or kitchen aisle might trigger your creativity, as might browsing a catalogue of equipment for physical education or for the preschool. You might be able to borrow an occasional prop from the gym teacher or preschool teacher.  Whatever well-chosen props you might have access to, use them judiciously, so that each item is a surprise and draws delight every time it is used.

Including a prop as an anchor can be very effective, but using the same prop two or three times in a class session diminishes its charm. Using a prop for both rhythm and tonal in the same class also takes away from the unique experience with one or the other, possibly confusing audiation and diminishing children’s enthusiastic imitation at home.  With classes of somewhat developed students, it can be effective to rotate props weekly at a particular point in your class.  For example, at a point where you want high energy rhythm activity, you might use hoops one week and pom pons the next.  If there is a point in the class for immersion of new content sitting down, you might use hammers one week, fly swatters the next (to swat the resting tone). Bringing a rotating prop back the third or fourth week with a different meter or tonality assures joy, while keeping every class fresh.

Props serve very well to faciliate energy management, sparking delight, variety, music babble, one-on-one response, make believe, and cooperation within a class. Balancing the use of props throughout the length of a class serves better for energy management than collecting one prop and passing out another with successive activities. Major energy changes in successive activities might include different props, or successive activities within one meter or tonality might move from one prop to another, tied together by the meter or tonality, but generally, spacing props throughout the class most effectively serves energy management.

You will develop favorite props for certain kinds of activities, using some primarily for rhythm and others primarily for tonal. You will find some props that can serve for both, and might, for example, one week use a microphone for Rhythm Dialogue, and another week for Tonal Dialogue. You will favor certain activities in certain “slots” of your lesson plan, perhaps designating one for dialogue each week, alternating rhythm and tonal, while rotating props, or alternating full body rhythm activity with full body tonal activity, while rotating props. A particularly effective prop with either rhythm or tonal might spark the imagination to create one equally effective for the other.

You will find that unusual props serve very well, as you define them by your musical use of them; so don’t discount small laundry baskets and items equally bizarre. The small baskets can provide for jack-in-the-box popping up to sing the resting tone, individual boats, hats, or whatever your imagination (or the children’s) might lead you to. Any item that would be attractive to young children and within their skill set, and miniatures of adult items like brooms, fly swatters, and paint brushes, can add great charm, enthusiasm, and musicality, when introduced musically in the context of meter or tonality.

When choosing props, especially something unusual, children’s safety is, of course, a factor, but we also have to consider children’s comfort zone.  For example, individual French fry baskets make fine props for a peek-a-boo Resting Tone Activity, with children holding the basket to their face to hide, and then removing the basket to sing the resting tone. Baskets with very open weave allow children to see through the basket while hiding. Baskets with a very tight weave may not elicit such willing resting tone responses.

You might be frustrated with props that many assume to be appropriate for a music class—like tennis balls, which roll away, and bean bags that can be lifeless. Homemade sponge blocks that toddlers can hold in each hand stimulate greater enthusiasm and activity than bean bags. Rhythm sticks serve beautifully for all ages, including babies, (even if to chew on), whereas tamborines require manipulative skill to hold the tambourine with one hand and play with the other. Creative use of tamborines for peek-a-boo resting tone or full body movement serves little children better.  Most other rhythm instruments require manipulative skill. Shakers are within the skill level of little tykes, but often produce more noise than musicality, taking away from the wonder of the meter or tonality.

Your journey of selecting, acquiring, and using props can be a very creative process. The more playful you can become and the more you can enter into the world of children, the more delight you will bring into the classroom and the more willing response you will get from your group of children and from individuals. It can be scary for a child to respond when expected to enter the world of the adult, but fun to respond when the teacher is playfully in the children’s world.