This thesis portrays a specific way of looking at the activity of music listening and the approach to this activity, at the core of which is the importance of a child's active experience of music. Including all the benefits and contributions that musical activities have on the wholesome development of a child in the early and preschool childhood, this thesis also demonstrates various forms and ways of carrying out said musical activities working with children of early and preschool age. Of particular attention is the music listening activity. In contrast to the usual passive listening to music, which occurs mainly because of the ubiquitous presence of music in everyday life, this thesis aims to demonstrate the importance of stimulating a child's active experience while listening to music. As a special contribution which additionally shows the importance of this phenomenon, this thesis emphasizes Bogdana Borota's particular approach and classification of a child's active ways of music listening (2013). Setting out from the viewpoint that music listening is a creative process of recognizing, taking in and experiencing music, the author differentiates between experiential, experiential-analytical and analytical ways of listening to music. The experiential way, which aims to stimulate emotions and their expression, is emphasized as the most frequently used method when listening to music with little children. Except this method, presented are also experiential-analytical and analytical way, which include not only stimulating a child's emotions, but also certain cognitive elements; it is important to point out that comprehension does not impact the experience negatively, on the contrary, it supplements it. At the same time, it is also important to point out that mental activities should not be in the foreground, because that way children are not able to fully immerse themselves into the experience. Aesthetic experience and aesthetic communication in musical upbringing and education, which is viewed as primary and secondary (Sam, 1998), is emphasized as a special aspect of a child's experience of music. There is also a short description of the term music reception in this thesis from the viewpoint of the level of stimulation, level of internal performance and level of response. Experiences of working with a mixed age kindergarten group are demonstrated using the examples of good practice.