Designing Tangible Interactions with Children for Pre-school Music Education

This paper describes the design and evaluation of two tangible interaction designs with children aged from three to five years in a pre-school setting. Our aim was to support early music education, especially rhythm, pitch, dynamic and expression practice. Over 10 weeks we conducted cooperative inquiry workshops with 12 children in a pre-school setting which have led to “Music Jars” and “Pass the Parcel”: two tangible designs that combine digital technology and everyday objects to engage children in learning music. Children were invited to share design ideas and their experience with these designs. The results show that curiosity, fantasy, and fellowship are important to design technologies for playful learning with young children.