Whether at school, or at home, following a routine is important for developing young children’s independence. Constant verbal reminders can be frustrating. They often lead teachers and parents to resort to saying ‘it’s easier just to do it myself.’ For many children, visual prompts are helpful, using visual timetables, instructions or timers. In my classroom, auditory cues, particularly through songs or music, work well when verbal and visual prompts are not successful.

I use music to signal the children when to walk into the building. This way, they know when it is time to come into school. We sing ‘ Come on everybody let’s walk to class.’ It’s time for school. We sing this to the tune of ‘The Wheels on the Bus’. On the way home we sing the same, but substitute walk to class with walk to the door. We also use this song for other transitions. At clean up time, we sing ‘come on everybody let’s put the toys away.’ It is time to clean up. The same song is sung to come in from outside play with a substitute of, ‘it is time to line up’

Another simple example is beginning and ending circle time with a song. We start our morning circle with a hello song and close our end of day circle with a goodbye song. Our closing circle comes after tidying up from playtime. I begin to play the ukulele. All of the children immediately come to circle and find their space on the carpet. When I play an instrument, it signals to the children that it’s time to come to the carpet for circle time. This practice has really helped my class with the transition. We sing this song to reinforce expectations at the circle.

Multi-step directions can be hard for some of our preschoolers to follow. I have been amazed at how much easier it is to follow multiple steps if they are sung. At snack time, clean up was a particularly tricky spot. I wrote this song to help the students remember what they needed to do.

You can use songs for many daily routines and add your own instructions. You could sing ‘this is the way we wash our hands’ when washing hands. Use the tune of ‘Here we go round the Mulberry Bush’. For putting on your coat, this song to the tune of ‘ happy and you know it’, might be helpful.

Put your coat on the table on the table

Put the hood near your body near your body

Put your arms in the armholes flip the coat over your head

Zip the zipper now you’ve put your coat on

Do you have any routine songs that work well for your class?