Playful Musical Activities for iPad: The Carnival of the Animals as a Support for Musical Interaction

The Carnival of the Animals (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-carnival-of- the-animals/id466412101?mt=8) is an app developed for the iPad to be used with children, to playfully learn to interact: receive, send and creatively process information. The basis for the app to support learning derives from the understanding of the shared elements of music and languages (Brown, 2000). This study was a sub-study of an international study project on the Carnival of the Animals. The aim of the Carnival of the Animals study (Cslovjecsek & Perez, 2013) is to gain evidence of the app as a support for holistic communication and vocal- linguistic expressions skills, through cross- linguistic and multisensoric communication. The focus of this paper is to present the Carnival of the Animals app, highlighting its possibilites as a tool for music education, based on theories on creativity, musical interaction, learning and the construction of well-being, the positive equilibrium of children, and information on game studies. In this substudy, the personal qualities of the children seemed to point out as factors to influence to the use of the app.