Curriculum as Co-Design in Early Years Music Education: Innovating a Project Life Cycle Learning MethodologyAbstractThis research explores how early years music education curricula can act as a methodology to build a social foundation that supports the continuity in lifelong learning. The term “social foundation” in curricula often refers to welfare, equity, and psychological support (Rodrigues et al., 2025), through approaches such as social-emotional learning or whole-child policy agendas. However, in many contexts of countries, the focus is more on families and communities rather than external welfare. Emerging research indicates that the curriculum is grounded in lived culture and communal knowledge (Yue, 2024). Instead of a top-down policy, how can the social foundation shape the curriculum through social practices, sustained by local contexts, and aimed at a child’s learning continuity throughout their lifetime? The paper argues that, although the curriculum is commonly viewed as more than just content or pedagogy, it is still critical to innovate a methodology for designing curriculum in practice. The limitations of current social practices include fragmentation, an event-focused approach, a lack of sustainable continuity, limited family involvement, and inadequate reflection. Our research suggests that these limitations stem from the absence of a curriculum as a project-based design methodology. Therefore, pilot research has been undertaken, in which the curriculum was co-designed with teachers, children, families, and community members, demonstrating that early years’ music education can progress beyond isolated activities towards a coherent life-cycle approach. The research experiment is conducted in a vocational college that collaborates with kindergartens and family communities, applying an innovative project-based curriculum system. The activities included rhythm games, playful chanting of short verses, and exploratory activities with accessible instruments. These practices have been evaluated to meet the needs of children aged three to six, fostering creativity, participation, and cultural grounding.