TRANSFORMING HISTORY AND MUSIC INTO A PLAYFUL EXPERIENCE IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Abstract

Early childhood education is an essential stage in children's development, in which the use of playful resources such as music and storytelling can make the learning process more engaging and meaningful. However, these elements are not always applied in a pedagogical and intentional way, and are often treated merely as entertainment. This study investigates how these practices can be integrated into the curriculum in a structured way, contributing to children's cognitive, emotional and social development. Based on a bibliographic review, to ensure the relevance and quality of the selected sources, the following inclusion criteria were used: survey of scientific articles, theses and dissertations, books, periodicals and peer-reviewed scientific journals; studies published in the last 15 years to ensure review; and works that directly address the topic of interest, whose key words were: playful; early childhood education; storytelling; musicalization. Exclusion criteria included: studies that did not directly address the topic or whose abstracts indicated low relevance to the study objective and publications of low methodological quality, such as studies without peer review. The results indicate that the planned use of music and stories favors students' language, memory, socialization and engagement.