In this lecture Ms. Marjolein Verburg MA, speaks about how children can develop their social skills through music education using the Kodály-­approach. Social skills are the behaviors that we use in order to communicate effectively with other people. Developing social skills is one of the most important developmental tasks in childhood. Play is an important setting to learn the implementation of appropriate social skills. Musical play unites social groups, draws the withdrawn into the group, stimulates participation and sharing.

Answering questions like: Which methods are frequently used by psychologists to train social skills with children? And how does this link to music education using singing and singing games as applied in the Kodály approach? In the second part of this lecture, participants will learn songs and games that are beneficial for social skill development of children. This part of the workshop is led by Ms. Anne-­Christine Wemekamp.

For the Wishful Singing Foundation, she has created a multiannual curriculum, called Wishful Music Education (Wishful ME). Music lessons derived from this curriculum not only benefit to the social skills of children, but also stimulate the creative and cognitive talent. Over the years, children will be taught to read and write music.