Creative Curriculum - Selecting Materials

The listening center, typically located in the lybrary corner and including story and music tapes, should be comfortable and inviting. To foster children's awareness of various types of music and their own preferences, try to provide access to music during times of the day when children are free to select their own activities. To make this possible, you need to ensure that the listening center include :

• easy to operate tape recorders and earphones
• shelf space to make tapes accessible to children
• labels to identify tapes (e.g. poctures of children dancing, marching, resting, etc.,to match the music; or colors or symbols to identify types of music such as bluegrass, classical, or rap) and
• variety of tapes, including music that is:

• fast and lively or slow and soothing so that children can cose music to fit their mood, diverse in style and tradition (such as folk,classical, country, jazz, rock, reggae, bluegrass, and ragtime) and
• representative of the children's cultures.

If you change the materials in the center regularly, children know that new discoveries await them when they come to listen.