This month's YMI Spotlight comes from team at Bookbug, Scotland's universal early years book gifting programme, delivered by Scottish Book Trust and funded by the Scottish Government’s Improving Health and Wellbeing Division and the Youth Music Initiative.
Catriona Wallace - Bookbug’s Head of Early Years – shares her thoughts on the positive impact of providing music for little ones and their families thanks to YMI.
Families enjoying a Bookbug session in a library. Image courtesy of Scottish Book Trust.
Catriona: “Bookbug supports babies, young children and their families to enjoy stories, songs and rhymes together from birth.
Sharing stories, songs and rhymes with babies and young children has many benefits including supporting children’s language, learning and social skills. It’s fun, free and simple, and the benefits will last their lifetime.
The Bookbug Bags and Bookbug Sessions support families to do more of these activities, which help build bonds and develop relationships and most importantly, are fun.
We believe that it is important that all families have access to books and musical experiences, for free.
Every year Bookbug gives bags of books and resources to support singing and rhyming, to all babies, toddlers, three year olds and P1 children.
Around 27,000 free Bookbug Session happen annually, in every part of Scotland.
Catriona: Support from the Youth Music Initiative has been integral to building a network of over 1,000 skilled Bookbug Session Leaders in communities across Scotland. These song and rhyme heroes are trained by Scottish Book Trust but deliver Bookbug Session directly to families in their area.
Funding from YMI has enabled Scottish Book Trust to develop and deliver high quality training, including refresher courses and a Train the Trainer model.
Our ongoing relationship with YMI has been vital in ensuring that Bookbug is informed by the latest thinking on how young children can engage with and benefit from music experiences, and enabled us to work with skilled musicians on the development of our programme.
We are extremely grateful to YMI for recognising the importance of the early years, and the contribution that Bookbug can offer, by helping us embed Bookbug Sessions within Scotland’s cultural landscape.
We have been fortunate to collaborate with a number of other fantastic organisations who deliver youth music activities including National Youth Choir of Scotland, Live Music Now and Fèis Rois.
Image courtesy of Scottish Book Trust.
Catriona: Babies and young children naturally love music. Singing and joining in with rhymes is great fun for children - it also benefits their development in many ways.
Let’s think about Round and Round the Garden . . . spending a few minutes doing a song or rhyme with a baby promotes closeness, and there are opportunities for gentle touch, cuddling up and eye gaze which all help build strong attachments with their parent or carer.
The repetition and rhythm help a child to tune into the musicality of the rhyme, which includes a steady beat mimicking a heartbeat that babies might remember as a reassuring sound from being in the womb.
The form of a song or rhyme is usually delivered at a pace and pitch that makes it easier for babies and young children to follow the words.
Image courtesy of Scottish Book Trust
They can see their grown-up forming words with their mouth and there are plenty of opportunities to join in.
Tickles and laughter at the end help release oxytocin - the “love” hormone - and will give all participants a boost health and wellbeing. If you are doing this rhyme as part of your Bookbug Session, surrounded by families engaging in the shared experience of singing and rhyming together, that is a wonderful thing for building community and relationships.
Find out more about the benefits of songs and rhymes
Catriona: In recent years we have responded to the growing digital culture by developing the Bookbug app.
With the nights drawing in earlier, there's more time to appreciate twinkly stars in the sky! 🌟
— Bookbug (@Bookbug_SBT) November 24, 2022
We're thrilled to add Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star in Punjabi to our website and Bookbug app. Snuggle up and enjoy our new video with your little stars. . . pic.twitter.com/emhObHRcO8
We wanted a free platform that would allow parents, carers and practitioners to learn new songs and rhymes and explore the incredible range of content that we have developed with musicians over the years in our song and rhyme library.
We know that thousands of families love using the app to sing along, dance to instrumental music, share their favourites and build their own playlists.
In recent years we have expanded our content to include stories, songs and rhymes in BSL and other languages. We have songs and rhymes in Punjabi, and new Polish music videos are coming very soon.
A standout moment for me was the musician residency that Scottish Book Trust ran in partnership with Fort Early Years Centre, Live Music Now and musician Marianne Fraser in 2015.
Over several months Marianne worked with families and practitioners to understand and develop songs rhymes and resources that specifically support toddlers to engage with music.
The end result was the Bookbug Toddler CD which is still available today in digital format as a playlist on our app. We loved taking learning directly from a small group of families to share with the whole country.
Catriona: Every child deserves opportunities to enjoy and make music, and that starts with the very young.
Music brings families together, forms earliest memories, helps children develop and can be such a joyful experience.
We are so fortunate that YMI supports Bookbug to offer these opportunities for free to enable families across Scotland to join in.
