Abstract:

Planning music corners in kindergartens plays an important role in encouraging social learning and developing musical abilities, skills and knowledge. For the purpose of the research, which involved preschool children, we planned music corners and followed the effect of conducting musical activities, creating and listening to music, on the musical and social development of the children, and monitored the interest children showed in musical activities. The music corner was accessible to children for 25 consecutive days during free playtime. Data was obtained from video recordings, and the frequency of occurrence of social and musical skills and showing interest in the activities was noted on observation sheets.

The results of the research confirm the effect of carrying out musical activities in:
(1) the area of social skills – children more often shared items with other children, assisted any child who needed help with playing, encouraged other children in the group to join in the musical activities, and successfully participated in group activities;
(2) the area of developing musical abilities and skills – children more often created and recreated vocally and instrumentally, sang a song with attention to intonation, skilfully played musical instruments, moved to the rhythm of the music, listened to music attentively, and were able to express their experiences and content of musical pieces through movement, in words, and artistic communication; and,
(3) in the area of interest – in music corners children more often expressed an interest and joy in various musical activities.

Keywords:

Musical activities, music corner, musical development, social development, kindergarten.