Thanks to Tamsyn for sharing this!
Babies and Music? Some wonderful suggestions. Part 1.
Babies and Music? Some wonderful suggestions. Part 3.

With my son we mostly listen to a lot of music. I emphasize ideas like high and low, loud and soft, and fast and slow. I have some scarves that we dance with and he likes to mimic me, so when the music is slow we do large slower movements, and when it’s fast, we move quickly. He loves this. I have a few child-friendly percussion instruments I got at the local music/toy store, and we play with them too. At this age, it’s hard to get small children to tap the beat, but one thing we can do is teach them to respond to musical cues. Doman touches on this in his “How smart is your baby” book when he says you should sing a nursery rhyme and leave off the last word for them to finish (or not), and then take more words off. I do this with my son musically as well. I have a bunch of cloth leaves that I sing a song with, and at the very end, we drop the leaves on the last word. Songs that have actions to them are also helpful in developing rhythm, like London Bridges, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, and even the Hokey Pokey. Another musical thing we’ve done is listen to Peter and the Wolf, and I show him pictures of the different instruments as they’re playing.

For teaching pitch, I’m a very big fan of solfeggio and the curwen hand signs*. D major (2 sharps) is the easiest key for children to sing in, so it’s a great place to start. In the Kodaly method, they teach the pitches in the following order,

1. Sol and Mi (the interval of a minor third, which is the easiest interval for children to sing). In D major, this is F# and A.
2. Add La (now you have the notes to sing “Rain, rain go away, come again another day!”)
3. Add low Do (Ring around the rosies)
4. Add Re (now you have the Pentatonic scale, Do, Re, Mi, Sol, La)
5. Add high Do

These notes are used extensively in the Kodaly method and Fa and Ti aren’t added until much later because it creates a minor second which is harder for young children to hear and sing. Many of nursery rhymes are written in the Pentatonic scale, as well as American folk music, so there is a wide variety of repitoire children can learn.

A great way to teach solfeggio is to have your child echo you. For example in the children’s choir, I would warm the kids up by singing “Sol, Sol, Mi, Mi” on quarter notes with the hand signs, and they would sing it back and do the hand signs. Then I would sing a different pattern, etc. The next week I would add La, and so on. This repetition gives you plenty of time to learn it as well! For teaching children to read music, you can tell them that when Sol is on a space note, Mi is on the space note below it, or when Sol is on a line note, Mi is on the line note below it. Lois Choksy explains how to do this in great detail in her book “The Kodaly Method”, which I highly recommend. The last quarter of the book is full of nursery/folk songs that follow the learning sequence I mentioned above, and is overall just a great book, one of the last in my music library I would be willing to part with. I bought an older version and compared it to a newer one
at our university’s library and didn’t see a lot of difference, so you can save a lot of money by buying an older edition, if you’re interested.

As far as teaching rhythm, I really like stick notation** and use it with my piano students. I play a rhythm and they create it with popsicle sticks, or with some homemade rhythm cards that I’ve made which makes it easier to incorporate dotted rhythms, half and whole notes.

Well, this is lengthy, but hopefully helpful.

For more suggestions from Tamsyn, see:
Babies and Music? Some wonderful suggestions. Part 1.
Babies and Music? Some wonderful suggestions. Part 3.