Although a vast majority of young children do not read sheet music, creating sheet music helps develop fine motor skills. Set a folder of blank sheet music in your music learning center and include a few golf pencils. Encourage students to compose a song by making whole notes, quarter notes and rests on the paper and pretend to play the masterpiece on a child-sized piano or guitar.
Display various dress-up costumes such as leather jackets, powdered wigs and marching band coats as well as instruments. For sanitary purposes, do not include wind and brass instruments that require instrument-mouth contact. Allow the children to work in groups to create a band and compose original scores to play for classmates.
A CD player or cassette player and various albums of children's music are effective additions to a music learning center. Incorporate the freeze dance, which is an activity encouraging the children to cease movement when the song is paused or stopped. Some children's songs instruct a specific dance or to act as various animals within the song and are creative movement ideas for your music center.
Create or purchase finger or hand puppets for children in your class to use at the music learning center. The puppets and students put on a show for other classmates through the singing of songs learned in conceptual lessons. "The Farmer in the Dell," "Where is Thumbkin?" and "Three Blind Mice" are examples of songs that can include puppet interaction.