Transitions

When  a child's time needs to be organized, that is, when a parent or teacher have a time schedule to keep or an agenda to stick to, a child will have to move from one activity to another. This time of ending an activity and beginning a new one is called a transition. For example, when you move from playing to eating lunch, or from eating lunch to taking a nap, or from the end of the day at school to the beginning of the evening at home. These are all times of transition. A person doesn't have to physically move for a transition to occur. In our music class we stay in the classroom, but we transition from playing instruments to dancing, or from singing a counting song on the felt board to getting ready to say goodbye.

Transitions can be times of stress or high emotion for children. You might think of the big life transitions like moving houses or or gaining a new sibling, but the small "micro" transitions are important to acknowledge too. Putting our instruments away for example, can be a sad time for children in my class. Adults can help children successfully navigate transitions times in a few different ways. One is to acknowledge the transition and any feelings that might come with it. "It's time to put away the instruments and I know that makes you sad" for instance. Don't be afraid of letting the feelings be present. It can be easy to fall into the trap of making promises that you may not be able to keep in an attempt to make your child feel better, or to let be in charge of the situation. Instead, say something that you are sure of like "we can play our instruments another time" or we have instruments at that we can play later, but right now we have to clean up so we can move on to the next activity."

Transitions are why we sing the same good-day and good-bye song at the beginning and end of every class. This gives the kids a chance to prepare for what is about to happen, and to say goodbye when class is over. When you are leaving you can say "we will see you next week!" and you can sing the songs you learned any time you want to!