Musical activities involving listening, expression and improvisation can stimulate children’s imagination, creativity, collaboration, engagement and socio-emotional well-being. Involvement and well-being — encompassing children's socio-emotional experiences — are indicators of the quality of children's musical experiences (Bačlija Sušić et al., 2022; Bačlija Sušić et al., 2025; Bačlija Sušić & Brebrić, 2025; Bačlija Sušić & Šuško, 2025).The Bioecological PPCT (Process-Person-Context-Time) model (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994; Bronfenbrenner, 2005) highlights proximal processes as repeated interactions between children and their environments as key mechanisms of development. Within this framework, children’s musical experiences can be understood as embodied sensorimotor interactions supporting cognition and creative expression (Hermans & Bremmer, 2015; Nijs & Bremmer, 2019). These perspectives emphasise the importance of an ecological, process-oriented approach to children’s well-being (Lee-Pang et al., 2025).This study examined how musical improvisation and experiential music listening can support children’s socio-emotional expression, creativity, engagement, sense of agency, and well-being in early childhood education (ECE) settings, through embodied, relational and contextual interactions. A design-based research (DBR) approach (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012; Reeves, 2006) was employed within the ongoing Erasmus+ project Everyone Can Improvise, in which an educator, a music specialist and ECE students collaborated. The research involved a mixed-age kindergarten group (N = 20, ages 3-6) who participated in project-related activities.The first iteration, Autumn, focused on Vivaldi's "Autumn" and multimodal, embodied improvisations. A modified version of the Observational System for Recording Physical Activity in Children-Preschool (OSRAC-P; Brown et al., 2006) measured children's embodied engagement, sense of agency, creativity and interaction, considering teacher prompts, support, and materials. The Leuven Scales of Involvement and Well-being assessed engagement and well-being (Laevers, 1994).Observations revealed that children consistently demonstrated embodied engagement, initiative and sense of agency, creativity and well-being across modalities. They expressed imagination and initiative by creating musical meanings through movement, gesture and voice. The children's expression was encouraged through interactions in small and large groups supported by educators' prompts, the environment and materials, including natural elements.These findings indicate that musical improvisation and experiential listening foster children's embodied engagement, sense of agency, creativity and wellbeing through participation, which contributes to their reflective musical understanding and holistic development. This is particularly evident when children adapt and build on their peers' musical ideas, thereby fostering a sense of community and empathy.Based on these findings, the study proposes a new approach to listening to music: the Embodied Experiential-Analytical Listening (EEAL) model. This model combines embodied musical improvisation and experiential-analytical listening to encourage children’s embodied engagement with music, develop a sense of agency, foster creativity, and promote socio-emotional well-being. These insights may have implications for ECE practice and policy, emphasizing the value of process-oriented, embodied approaches in supporting children’s reflective musical understanding and holistic development.