“The job of adults is to make sure
natural curiosity is supported and
not squashed. Curiosity cannot be
directly taught and doesn’t have
to be; it emerges and can be
nurtured.”

                          – Anne Mitchell

                          Past President of NAEYC

Music activities are a natural, developmentally
appropriate way to support young children’s
curiosity. Children show curiosity about instruments,
different ways to play music, ways to move to
music, even CD players and keyboards!

The thing about children’s curiosity, though, is
that it doesn’t usually fit into our lesson plans.
Once I was talking about how birds sing, for
example, and one boy asked, “Are birds reptiles?”
This isn’t exactly where I planned on going
with my lesson, but it was a good question! And
one I didn’t know the answer to. I told the boy I 
would find out more about that. If I had replied,
“We’re not talking about that right now,” I would
have lost an opportunity to support that boy’s
instinctive curiosity.

By the way: I learned that birds are indeed
descended from reptiles!