As I’ve mentioned before we’re a house of music lovers. It’s important to us that our children appreciate and engage with music. So I was happy to receive a copy of some new books by Carrie and David (of CBeebies fame) which aim to introduce young children to basic music skills.

The books we received are Elephant’s Birthday Bells and Lion’s Speedy Sauce. Each book has a CD which you play alongside looking at the book. Each book begins with a story and then has a song to sing along with followed by a couple of exercises to introduce basic music skills. Robo boy and two of his friends from preschool gave the books a thorough testing.

‘Elephant’s Birthday Bells’ focusses on loud and soft. The story is engaging and the children love the song. By the end of the book they even managed to sing harmonies together. This book is the most challenging of the two and would work well for the older end of the age range (3-7).

Since at four the boys are at the younger end of the age range they preferred’ Lion’s Speedy Sauce’ which focusses on rhythm. Again they loved the story and had a good boogie to the sing along song. They were particularly engaged with an exercise using clapping to mark a rhythm. The concentration on their faces as they tried to clap at the correct times was delightful and they were definitely learning about timing as they did it.

I would absolutely recommend these books to any parents interested in introducing their children to making music. I will leave you with a clip of the children showing you their best dance moves to the sing along song in Lion’s Speedy Sauce.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izqxwlnRtQI&feature=youtu.be

*Disclosure: I received a copy of the aforementioned books for the purposes of this review.