Playful activities in the classroom help spark children’s curiosity and interest in new learning. In addition to games and toys, music can be used as a ludopedagogical tool.
For music teacher Renan Tavares, who has experience teaching music to elementary school children, lessons that use this approach help capture students’ attention, encouraging them to work in groups, value musical instruments, interact with their peers, overcome shyness, and discover new skills. Throughout his career, Tavares has developed teaching techniques to make his lessons more engaging and content-rich, and he shared some of them with the blog Aprender Brincando. Check them out:
1. The Sounds of Our Body
This activity encourages children to repeat sounds and music through clapping. For older students, the challenge can be increased by asking them to repeat the music using hand taps on their legs or stomps with their feet. In addition to perception and rhythm, this exercise also develops students’ motor coordination. To inspire your students, you can show them a video by the group Barbatuques:
2. Behind the Melody
The goal of this exercise is to awaken children’s knowledge of and interest in music history without making theoretical lessons boring. To do this, Tavares suggests choosing a musician and exploring related curiosities, such as the artist’s origin, the translation of their name (if they are foreign), their birthplace, and their life story—focusing on how they became a musician.
For example, when teaching about the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, Tavares explains the meaning of his name (which literally means “beet farm”) and tells students that even with severe hearing problems, Beethoven managed to compose great symphonies. He then presents some of Beethoven’s most famous works. Using music as a ludopedagogical tool can also include the teacher joining in the fun by dressing up as the musician being studied.
3. Parody Show
Making parodies of well-known songs is a timeless and popular activity, and it can be brought into the classroom under the teacher’s guidance to make learning more playful. Among children who are used to listening to rap—a common genre in many neighborhoods—creating improvised music can already be part of their leisure time.
To carry out this activity, the class is divided into groups, and each group selects a song to parody. The students are then challenged to write new lyrics to the existing melody using content they have learned in class. This exercise can be applied in various subjects, such as math, history, and science. Repeating the song significantly helps with memorization of the studied material.
4. Little Craftspeople
The idea here is for each student to build their own musical instrument using recyclable materials. This activity raises children’s environmental awareness, challenges them to discover the sounds that objects can produce, and stimulates imagination.
From these examples, Tavares emphasizes that music as a ludopedagogical tool contributes to an excellent educational foundation, fostering skills such as socialization and creativity, as well as the discovery of artistic potential.