Abstract:

Pre-school age children are taught to discover the world, environment, daily rituals of living which may be complex or even uninteresting and sometimes ineffective. It is important to achieve that in an early stage children would discover deeper relation to the educational content and joy of learning, have their emotions positive, motivation high, and their creativity expands within the process of cognition. Music education and integration of music activities in pre-school education activities can be highly beneficial. Integrated activities allow a pedagogue find out and merge experience and knowledge accumulated by children, develop their creativity. During the integrated activity, children obtaining different abilities undergo comprehensive (self-)education.

Problem of the Research. Practical implementation of the plans of music integration into pre-school education activities may reveal major reflective observations on the very process, proceeding changes and educational effectiveness; therefore, the problem questions for the research are the following: What didactic changes are observed in the practice of application of music integration into activities? What didactic effect can be expected? The research aim is to reveal the didactic reflective aspects of application of practical integration of music in pre-school education of children, more strongly emphasising what are main characteristics of effectiveness of application of music integration.

The methodology of the present paper is the last part of the two stages of the research. The first stage: there were participated 327 pres-school teachers voluntary since 2017 till 2020. They wrote a detailed plan of integrated music activities in daily children education, there were selected only 81 detailed plans because of integration quality criteria and good example of didactic. There were identified major aims, methods and themes of application where music was didactically being integrated into pre-school education. During the second stage, 20 detailed education plans were selected; two voluntary pedagogues practically implemented them (delivered activities according to the plans in the classroom) and wrote reflections. Results of the reflections were analysed employing content analysis, attributing notional statements to sub-categories and categories.

The research results. Implementation of high quality detailed plans for integration of music into pre-school education while practically delivering activities for little children in kindergartens as well as the analysis of reflections recorded in relation to this allow drawing conclusions of a pilot character which could change after conducting a more extensive investigation. Integrated music activities are useful and effective in early education of children because they help achieve the educational goals set for this age phase (mostly contribute when developing artistic expression, emotions, communication skills), motivate children to become more active, focused, free, diversify activities, better memorise and feel happy. This is one of the ways to simulate children’s motivation and comprehensive (self-)education. The planning and implementation of music integration activities provide an opportunity for a pedagogue to more effectively achieve educational goals in pre-school age in relation to specific topics, where flexible application of music elements is possible.

Keywords:

Music, pre-school children, integration, didactics.