Why Kindermusik Before Piano?

Today in our Family Time class I had a great reminder of one of the reasons we suggest taking Kindermusik before starting piano.

The children took a little extra time today with the instrument exploration during family jam. One thing we worked on with the older kids, was trying to exercise BOTH hands, not just the favored hand. Playing the simple instruments like a drum with mallet, rhythm sticks, castanets, sand blocks and shakers work on fine motor skills and hand eye coordination required to play the piano or any other instruments. Alternating egg shakers or rhythm sticks not only strengthens neural connections between the right and left sides of the brain, but it also strengthens coordination in the non-dominant hand which is essential for piano technique.

Another aspect of the instrument exploration is that the instruments are all played in different ways thus using different muscle groups in the arms. This strengthens the fine motor muscles that control the individual fingers. Finger independence and equal finger strength is also important to learning to play the piano.

This is also important in help the child learn to hold a spoon and feed himself or learning to write. Other activities that facilitate fine motor development are the pegged puzzles, stringing beads, putting beans through a small hole in an old can, using tongs to move cotton bowls from one dish to another, or using an eye dropper to squeeze out one drop of liquid at a time. Try putting these activities where they are worked from left to right. This helps prepare them to read text as well as music from left to right.

Kindermusik provides the perfect opportunity to work on all these skills in a free environment where there are no wrong ways to play an instrument and endless outlets for creativity.

Originally from Imaginations Music Studio offering Kindermusik and Piano in Birmingham by Lauren

Normalizing Crazy

Article from Studio3Music - The #1 Kindermusik Studio

Normalizing Crazy
Ever noticed how prevalent cycles are in life? Every day the sun comes up, it goes down. The earth rotates around the sun causing predictable seasonal cycles. The dryer has a cycle. The dishwasher has a cycle. Moms have those cycles. Even businesses and school years have cycles.

Guess what? Your kids' development tends to cycle too. Understanding these cycles can help you avoid taking a spin on the crazy cycle when your normally sweet child's behavior takes a turn for the worse.

Jean Piaget, noted sociologist, observed that children's development is not linear and progressive like the gradually rising line graph measuring a successful company's sales. Rather, children develop cognitively on a relatively predictable cycle with periods of equilibrium followed by disequilibrium.

According to Piaget, children go through a stage of disequilibrium when they have learned new information about the world and now their brains must "accommodate" that information and adjust their other ideas about their world (which Piaget called "schemes") to it. The child must learn and master a new set of skills. Trial and error learning is taking place, which includes uncertainty, struggle, and frustration.

Conversely, when a child is in the phase called equilibrium, she is "assimilating" the information learned, having fun with her new skill and knowledge. This phase lends itself to more ease and pleasant emotion.

As children cycle through these learning phases, their behavior reflects the emotional comfort, or discomfort of the phase. A child experiencing disequilibrium may suddenly seem more difficult to get along with, or edgy and challenging.

Think about what it is like for you to drive in an unfamiliar city. Until you know where you are going and how to get there, you can feel uptight and even bark at your spouse if you go the wrong direction or miss a turn. When a child's internal map is shifting, he may feel anxious and act out unpredictably until things become more settled. And of course he doesn't understand what is going on.

When my son hit age four, my darling boy went through a particularly snarky period. I sought advice from a trusted friend, who just happened to be a seasoned first grade teacher with an award-winning knowledge of brain development in children. My lucky day! She explained to me this "normal" crazy cycle of equilibrium and disequilibrium.

My fears of raising a juvenile delinquent were calmed. She recommended the excellent books on the child development by well-known author, Louise Bates Ames. Ames' books explain the various developmental cycles of each age. Once I knew what to expect, I could better interpret behavior and ride out a cycle of disequilibrium with less fear and stress.

Recognizing a season of disequilibrium does not mean you excuse unacceptable behavior or give your child permission to be a thorn in the side of your family for a time. It simply helps you to have patience and to calmly assess what discipline tool is needed to help train your child to handle the new place in life she is discovering. You can lovingly and consistently deal with the individual situations as they arise. And when things suddenly get smoother, you can celebrate equilibrium!

More on equilibrium and disequilibrium next time.

-posted by Donna Detweiler, who found that the truth about equilibrium/disequilibrium cycles set her free from fear during difficult days.

Please comment or send me a tweet @Angelmusik

Instrument Families

Remember When Pluto Was A Planet--And Then It Wasn't?
(Notes from Sing, Play and Grow: A Family Guide to Musical Fun)

We humans like to fit neatly in categories, and when the boundaries are blurred we get a little nervous.  Categories help us describe and analyze things.  Musicians use all sorts of categories: rhythms (think: tangos, salsas, and rumbas), styles (choose your radio station--pop, hip-hop, or classical), and types of instruments (woodwinds, percussion, brass and strings).  Just like planets, these categories can get a bit murky (so if a flute is make of metal, why is it a woodwind?).

During Family Time Class your child will begin to learn how instruments are organized.  Some instruments we tap and some we blow.  Some have strings, some have reeds, some are made of brass.  Putting things into categories is something preschoolers love to do.  Learning about colors, shapes, and sizes brings some order to the chaos of early childhood.  Discovering musical categories adds another dimension to recognizing similarities and differences.

"All night have the roses heard

The flute, violin, bassoon;

All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd

To the dances dancing in tune."
Alfred Lord Tennyson

SEE HOW THEY GROW

Your Infant and Instrument Families
Not even the greatest musical prodigy can distinguish between strings and woodwinds in infancy, but sorting things into categories is something adults do all the time.  (Think: winter clothes/summer clothes; junk food/healthy food; good boss/bad boss.)  As with everything else, sorting starts in infancy.  The first set of categories is broad and basic, probably something like "Am I comfortable or miserable?" which gets refined into "Am I sleepy or wakeful?" and "Am I hungry or full?"  Soon your child is exploring the world by looking around and bringing anything within reach to his mouth.  This leads to discoveries of contrasting shapes, textures, and sounds.  So before your child can recite all of the brass instruments (don't forget the flugelhorn), he'll need to develop more basic concepts such as "warm/cold."

Your Toddler and Instrument Families

Now that your child is up and about, she is able to examine and analyze everything within her reach.  As part of her play she's discovering how some things are the same and others different, and she is mentally developing categories--wet/dry, big/little, soft/hard.  She may be thinking, "Not all stuffed animals look alike, but they have a lot in common, and they don't look at all like blocks."  In the same way, she's registering that the sounds she hears when she bangs pot lids together are different from those she hears when she squeezes her favorite squeaky toy.  Because children don't have the words to assign names to categories, it's hard for us as parents to see this development taking place, but under our very noses our children are developing concepts.  This ability to translate some concrete thing to an abstract idea is powerful stuff.  When our children start talking, we get a peek at how they're organizing their world.  At first the word "doggy" may refer to all animals.  Then "doggy" may mean "dogs and cats," and finally "doggy" may mean "all dogs except Pekingese."  Your child still isn't naming brass instruments yet, but she knows that clicking rhythm sticks and tooting through a tube are two different ways to make music.

Your Preschool and Instrument Families

If you check in with a preschool teacher (or even pay attention to what you find yourself teaching your child during daily activities at home) you'll see that forming categories is at the heart of the preschool curriculum.  At this age children are learning colors, shapes, and sizes; they're learning times of day and seasons of the year.  Preschoolers are good at this kind of simple categorization--it's what they like to do.  Identifying the sections of the orchestra is too complex, but your preschooler can happily distinguish between making music by blowing, making music by strumming, and making music by tapping.  Understanding these basic divisions will help a child grasp more sophisticated distinctions when he's older.

What are your family's favorite instrument families?  Leave a comment or tweet @Angelmusik

Learning through Play

We all know that children play for fun. But the truth is that as they play they are learning. When children play they use their senses-touch, taste (not appropriate at times, but what can we do?), sight, hearing and smell- and that's how they learn about their surroundings.

Play can stimulate children's intellectual, emotional, social, and physical development. Also, through play they practice and repeat. This is an important way to make neural pathways stronger, making things more automatic, learning skills better.

Play also helps increase attention and focus, social-emotional skills (when they play with other children), and even problem-solving techniques (especially when they play by themselves). But parents and caregivers should also be involved in the child's play to help with language, motor skills, and self-esteem.

Here are some ideas for you to be involved in your child' s play:
1) Observe the child. What are his/her interests? What kinds of toys does he/she like? This way you will provide with more opportunities to play with certain activities or objects they are already interested in. The more motivated they are, the more attention they will pay and more learning will occur.
2) Once a day or more, sit down and play with your child. Ask them, What do you want me to do? Follow their game! Don't do things for them or try to "fix" it. They are trying to figure things out for themselves. Let them!
3) Talk while you play! Don't tell them what to do, but you can describe what you are doing as you do it. Use appropriate sentences for their ages. I am not suggesting you use baby talk to your 3 year old, but use short sentences that are appropriate for what they are learning. That way they are learning more vocabulary and practicing conversational skills.

Some ideas of games appropriate for different ages:
1) Babies- play peekaboo; provide many opportunities to feel and hear different textures and sounds.
2) Toddlers-pretend play. Have a castle? Pretend there is a prince, a princess and dragons! Have a car? Pretend you are driving around town, what do you see?
3) Preschooler-read books, look at pictures, draw your own pictures, or dance. At this age we need lots of eye-hand coordination and motor movements.
4) Elementary school age-play games with rules (board games, video games, physical games like "tag")
5) 9-12 years old- focus on more structured play, like sports.

I think I am still in my elementary school age stage! I love board games! Who doesn't love a good game of Pictionary or Star Wars Monopoly?

What is your favorite kind of game to play?  Please Comment!

This article was oringially published by vcabrera77 April 20, 2010 at 6:50 pm

Movement

A young child on the move is a great thing! Movement is not just important for helping children grow physically strong and healthy, but is also a key factor in their overall development. Movement builds self-confidence. Children feel competent, physically and emotionally, when they use their bodies to communicate and solve problems. Most importantly, movement can help children develop a close bond with their caregivers. A child's desire to be close to and connect with someone is often what motivates her to move.

There's a little drum a beating. It's my heart!

Our entire lives, our heartbeat provides a constant sense of rhythm. It's no wonder that we are all drawn to drums. Research shows that the act of drumming actually changes the chemicals in our brains, relieving stress and creating a sense of well being.

I brought a couple home made drums to class and we saw that there is no limit to the ways a drum can be made.

We will be making drums this week at home and then bringing them to Our Time class next week.

Why not make one yourself and play your homemade drum with your child and see what else you have that can be a drum.

I bet it "beats" any other activity you can think of!  Got a comment?  You can also tweet @Angelmusik

Our Time Toddlers!

Toddlers are insatiable movers.

Running, jumping, and other energetic locomotor movements are valuable, appropriate, and fun activities for the Our Time child. The child's innate need to move is inextricably linked to learning. It is important to provide outlets for your child's energy as well as for her skill development. Moving and controlling one's movements are learned skills.

Toddlers are just beginning to learn to regulate their movements. One aspect of self-regulation is inhibitory control or the ability to stop oneself and to wait. Inhibitory control is important in social interactions where taking turns is involved and as such is an important skill for success in school.

"Control of the body is the first kind of  control children have over themselves and is the first step toward the

development of internal control or 'selfdiscipline.'"  -Dance for Young Children, by Sue Stinson, p. 5.

Kindermusik classes offer opportunities for children to discover new ways to move their bodies, explore their
capabilities, and practice their new skills.

Moving and Stopping

Your child may be an exuberant mover-running, leaping, jumping! Or your child may be more cautious about moving-making smaller, less energetic movements. Or, your child may be somewhere in between! All of these movement responses are perfectly normal for toddlers. Your child may be reluctant about joining in movement activities in class, but may energetically try them out at home. Your child is always learning-even if he does not appear to be actively engaged in a class activity.

Toddlers often find it difficult to stop moving. One way to help your child develop inhibitory control is to play "stop and go" games with him. These games allow your child to practice controlling his movements and to revel in his mastery of this control. One "stop and go" singing game played in class is "Walk and Stop." Sing this song at home repeating several times, changing the movement word on each repeat. Try spinning, twirling, or even crouching!

Toddlers also often have great difficulty taking turns and sharing.
This is completely natural since they cannot "put themselves in someone else's shoes." Attending Kindermusik Our Time class each week provides the opportunity for your child to interact with other children and to begin
practicing sharing and turn-taking. Activities that call for sustaining attention, following directions, or inhibiting movement or sound provide opportunities to help your child learn to monitor and modify her own behavior.

The Away We Go! curriculum provides opportunities for your child to listen attentively during Active Listening activities, to share and take turns playing an instrument during "There's a Little Wheel," and to practice waiting for the teacher to sing to him at the beginning of each class during "Our Time Hello."

At Home

• With your child, make up a signal for "stop."  Start using the signal while playing "stop and go" games with your child. Then, you can use the signal in other situations when you wish for your child to "stop."
• Model sharing behaviors. Make an effort to include "share" in your vocabulary when talking to your child. She needs to know what it means before she can do it.  Remember that children are very likely to imitate your actions. 
• Play a "stop and go" instrument game with your child. Let your child play his harmonica until you give him the "stop" signal. How quickly can he stop? Play your harmonica and let him give you the "stop" signal!

Notes from a Kindermusik Our Time: Away We Go! lesson.
Leave a comment or send me a tweet @Anglemusik

Dew Drops and Steady Beat

Feel the beat?

In this week's Village class we found that steady beat was at the heart of every activity-exercising to "Did You Ever See a Lassie?," bouncing to an old English song, "Ride a Cock-Horse to Banbury Cross," where we actually tried riding some stick poneys and then finally rocking to the calming tune of "Greensleeves."

Steady beat is the unchanging continuous pulse in a song or chant and is an organizer for the child; purposeful and calming. Moving to a steady beat, a child develops a sense of timing, which is fundamental to the ability to organize and coordinate movements. Think of all we do that requires regularly-paced repeated motion (a sense of steady beat!): walking, running, riding a bicycle, cutting with scissors, bouncing a ball, and more.

It's easy to find the beat in a nursery rhyme. Pick out a couple of your favorite rhymes and get the nursery rhyme beat!

Here are some ideas to get you started:

a.. Holding baby and walking-just add the rhyme and walk to the beat.
b.. Drying off baby after bath time-exercise legs up and down to a rhyme.
c.. Just finished dressing baby-lap bounce to a verse or two.

Bouncing along!  Hey, leave a comment or tweet @Angelmusik

Kindermusik Birthday Parties

Let Kindermusik Help Plan your next Birthday Party!

We can create a birthday celebration around YOUR SPECIAL THEME, using dancing, singing, instruments, puppets, balls, parachute, a birthday story and more.

Watch the WONDER and JOY in your child’s eyes as your birthday specialist transports everyone to a sandy ocean shore, an African safari adventure, or a fairytale castle!

We’ll come to your location, or you may choose to have us host your celebration at our studio in in the New Day Center for the Arts. Either way, let us doing the planning for you, and everyone will enjoy a delightful celebration TOGETHER!

So, set the date, choose one of our party packages, and email or give us a call. We also offer “musical party favor bags” with options such as: shakers, bells, scarves, bubbles, rhythm sticks, balls, puppets, and streamers. Prices vary.

Here is what one Mom had to say about her daughter’s birthday party:
Bethann Janson Thorson: We had Madison's party with Angie at Kindermusik. I could not have asked for a better 2nd birthday party for my daughter. We had a mixture of boys and girls at this Princess themed party. There was dancing, signing and playing. All the kids had such a blast! Angie is so good with picking fun and educational activities. I would certainly recommend her for parties! When the parachute came up, it seemed like the kids wanted to just play with that for the rest of the party! It was great!

Children need spinach, so we put it in icecream!

As the original music and movement program for children, we understand that children learn best when they can see it, hear it, touch it, and then express it in their own creative ways. Each week in class, Angie Janson, licensed Kindermusik educator leads families through research-proven and giggle-approved activities using music as the vehicle for learning.

You will find your child making new friends and learning to say letters and words confidently in a fun, safe, child-focused environment, that helps you the parent, learn how to teach your child at home. Our daily class routine, the circle dances and instrument play times will help your child learn to work together with others in a group. Our story time will introduce your child to the sounds of letters, rhyming words, musical phrases, fluency, and the love of reading. Our focus on listening will help your child attend or put his or her attention on a sound and imitate it to understand its meaning. Weekly listening practice in class and daily listening practice at home will help your child's attention span to increase, her level of interest to expand, and he or she will be ready to listen and learn everyday at school!

The learning continues throughout the week with the home materials, including a CD, storybooks, Family Activity Guide, instruments, and more. Plus, we provide you with weekly parent education and resources, including developmental emails and in-class tips so that youknow how each activity contributes to your child's overall growth and development.

Contact us to set up a free preview and to learn about our payment plans.
Classes start at $15 per week









Please comment or send a tweet @Angelmusik!

Make Way for Music!

Make Way for Music: Our Voices!

"Sing, sing a song."- nothing is more beautiful than families singing together!  In class we play with our voices-whispering, speaking, singing, and making other neat sounds!

Our voices do so much for us every day-communicating information or emotion, making sounds of surprise or delight, and much more! As "our first instrument," the human voice has amazing possibilities in speech and singing. One of your child's first responses to a musical experience were vocal sounds-babblings, cooing, and the like. With time, experience, and practice comes a control over those sounds-resulting in matching pitch, singing alone or with others, and singing with or without accompaniment.

Families that sing together have fun together!

• How many songs does your family know? Make a long drive shorter with a Family Singing Marathon. Someone keep record of the number of songs and minutes for the next time.
• Tired of waiting in the check-out or drive through line? Sing a song.
• Pass a song. Make up family rules so every member of the family gets a turn to sing part of a familiar song.

Demo Classes on Saturday Mornings!

Come to a free Demo Class on Saturday Mornings!

Family Time Class at 9:30am at the New Day Center for the Arts

We'll be singing and learning all about our voices and more, we'll even be singing some bird songs!

High and Low

High and Low
High and low pitches are basic elements used by the speaking and singing voice. As we speak the rise and fall in pitch, or inflections, can initiate different responses from Baby.  Research has discovered that exposure to high sounds plays an important part in maintaining alertness and energy required for learning. There is a tendency to need more sleep, be less active, and get ill more often when high-pitched sounds are removed from the environment.

Home Acitivty suggestions:
Use a wide variety of voice ranges as you talk to Baby. Notice the response between using a voice that is animated with wide ranges of high and low and a speaking voice that stays in the lower register.

All Fall Down

I love "All Fall Down" from Away We Go ". But we'll do it in just about every class level. From a learning perspective, it works for all age groups. And I love it because it is just plain fun.

On the off chance that you've never experienced the joy of playing "All Fall Down", let me fill in the blanks a bit. There are rules that everyone follows, so that makes it a game. Everyone gets a streamer. Parents, too. And there is music (naturally).

The music has three cues, and each cue requires a specific reaction from the players (these are the rules):

To start, everyone lies on the floor.
When you hear the crank, you get up.
When you hear the music, you dance.
When you hear the descending scale, you fall down.
Repeat until the music is over.

Then repeat again and again and again, until everyone is tired. You'll be physically tired before your child is tired of the game.

Why? Because they love this game. Here are some of the reasons I think they love it so much and will play it over and over again.

Reason One: The need to move is so powerful in the early years that any game or activity that encourages movement is going to be a hit. This particular game inspires total abandonment to movement- it is all about movement. Fast movement, slow movement, moving just your arms as the streamers fly all around you, smooth movements and jerky movements- it just doesn't matter so long as you are moving. No one feels like this game is too hard. No one feels like this game is too easy. So the success rate is 100%.

Reason Two: This game allows young children to address one of their bigger fears as new movers and walkers - falling down. Have you ever seen a child take a tumble, pop right back up, obviously unharmed, burst into tears and dash into mom's or dad's arms? They do that, not necessarily because they got hurt, but because the fall scared them.

A game where falling down is the ultimate goal is a great way to alleviate this fear. The children are in control of the falling; they learn that they can get back up again, that their brain is in control of their body throughout its range of motion. Learning to fall down helps to put the child in control of their body.

Reason Three: The game has a surprising intellectual element. There are no language cues that signal what to do. The child simply learns to recognize the sound of the descending scale pattern and understand that means it's time to fall down.

Initially, they learn by watching the grownups. I am quite sure they learn the musical cue, because after three weeks of playing "All Fall Down" in class the children are now anticipating it; they know when it's coming and get ready. A pre-schooler in "Imagine That!" dashed by me today and said "It's coming Miss Allison!!!" and she was dead on. (She was thrilled to be right- such success!) And they know how long they need to lie on the floor (it's different each time) and they don't move until they hear that crank. Which is connected to.

Reason Four: This game teaches self-control - how to wait, how to follow instructions, how to share the space with a dozen other moving bodies and not crash into them. It teaches deliberate listening and deliberate action. It is a game that is full of purpose.

It is so full of purpose that it's easy to forget the original intent of the activity is to teach the musical concepts of high and low. And it does that beautifully as well.

-posted Originally by Miss Allison from Studio 3, who wants you to head into the living room and clear the furniture and enjoy a few moments of unconstrained, falling down joy.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

What goes up comes down with a bounce-and lots of laughter!

It's all about learning something new the toddler way, which means challenging and inspiring that natural sense of wonder. And this week, it was all about having a ball.

Toddler's don't always realize the physical properties of a ball, and may be surprised and thrown off balance when a ball bounces back up. But, by practicing bouncing and rolling balls in class, s/he will learn to predict what the ball will do and move as she needs to maintain her balance and keep control of the ball.

He can use these balancing skills when learning new moves, like skipping and jumping. Rolling and catching the ball improves hand-eye coordination, which will help her with many activities as she grows.

Your Baby's Emotional Health

Your Baby's Emotional Health

Emotional development is dependent upon the care received at an early age. The child who receives love, attention, and the encouragement to explore and learn is most likely to have a more highly developed amygdala, the part of the brain that allows a person to calm himself. The parts of the brain that control emotion are very much affected by the amount of handling, love, and care we receive as young children. -Magic Trees of the Mind, by Marian Diamond, Ph.D. and Janet Hopson, pp. 125-127.

"To love means you also trust." -Joan Baez

Building Bonds in Kindermusik Class
Kindermusik Village offers you a time away from everyday life where you can focus all of your attention on your baby, providing her with the care and attention that she needs for her emotional development. Kindermusik activities were designed with you and your baby in mind, and they offer many opportunities for touching, attention, and cuddling. All of the small exchanges between you and your baby have an emotional subtext, and through the experienced repetition of these messages (e. g. "I keep cuddling you because I love you and think you are special!"), children form the core of their emotional outlook and capabilities. In Kindermusik, activities are designed to foster a sense of security.

The hello and goodbye rituals that we use each class support emotional stability and a feeling of trust and well-being between adults and babies. Friendly greetings and exchanges provide an environment for positive social interaction. And the warm-up activities shared at the beginning of class are examples of intentional touch. Intentional touch can nurture the bond between Adult and Baby, relaxing both Adult and Baby with eye contact, skin contact, the adult's voice, and Baby's responses.

Connecting through Music at Home

Enjoy more nurturing at home with these activity ideas.

• "You Are My Sunshine"  Rock and sing along to your baby. He will love this bonding opportunity with you. "Mothers throughout the ages have communicated love and warmth to their infant child through the singing of lullabies and songs.. These simple activities give the baby a feeling of security andprotection." Your singing is a signal of safety and well-being to your child. -Good Music, Brighter Children, by Sharlene Habermeyer, pp. 39, 40.
• Sing and rhyme along with your everyday routines. In the most basic of activities, a musical approach helps your baby feel valued.

• Gentle massage of the neck and shoulders stimulates the release of oxytocin, a hormone that produces feelings of calm and comfort. Spend some time listening to soft music and massaging Baby. He will love the time with you and enjoy the calming effects. -Carla Hannaford, interview by Kindermusik International, Creative Team, 18 January

Babies and Music

Kindermusik Village: Notes from Cock-a-doodle-MOO!

"Musical awareness is observable very early in life. [Howard Gardner, educational theorist who developed the theory of Multiple Intelligences] states that it emerges the earliest of all the different kinds of intelligence. The Papouseks, highly respected developmental researchers from West Germany, report that infants as young as two months can match the pitch, intensity, and melodic contour of the other's songs, and at four months infants can match the rhythmic structures as well. These researchers feel that infants are even more
predisposed to these aspects of music than to speech (Papousek, 1982)."

"Theories of Child Development and Musical Ability," by Sally Rogers from
Music and Child Development, ed., Franz L. Roehmann and Frank R., Wilson, pp. 2-3.

Your Baby's Musical Life

You may have already noticed that your baby is listening attentively to music. He may react to different types
of music in different ways. He may become alert, move excitedly, relax, or even doze off depending on the nature of the music. By filling the spaces of Baby's day with music we are teaching him the many roles that music can play throughout his life. Music can help him relax, cope with feelings, celebrate, create, and express beyond verbal capabilities.

Musical Variety in Kindermusik Village

Kindermusik Village introduces a great variety of music, representing diverse cultures, styles, and tonalities, as well as varied instrumentation and voice types. Cock-a-doodle-MOO! features Cantonese Lullaby, a soothing, traditional Chinese song; Hey Diddle Diddle, a simple, traditional English rhyme and song; Ritsch, Ratsch, a lively Swedish folk song, and Armenian Lullaby, a relaxing song in the minor mode. Not only will your baby enjoy reacting to these different styles of music emotionally and physically, but intellectually it is
important that your baby experience this music. We tend to appreciate and enjoy listening to music that is familiar.  By exposing your baby to a broad selection of music at an early age, you will help him have a rich "repertoire" of familiar sounds and styles that will make more music accessible and interesting to him throughout his life.

Music at Home

Allegro! Andante. Adagio.

Pick a song and sing it to baby slowly and then quickly. See if you can tell from Baby's response
which tempo he prefers. Which do you prefer?

Dance!

Play Skip to My Lou and dance with Baby using fast, pointed movements. Then play Little Boy Blue and slow dance with her. Try continuous, sweeping motions.

What Time Is It?

Play different types of music for different times of the day. Perhaps you could play Simple Gifts when it is time for a nap, and then play The Merry Farmer when it is time for active play.

A Musical Treasure Hunt

Explore everyday objects with Baby to see what sounds they make when you strike them with a spoon or shake them. Does there seem to be an object or sound that Baby is particularly interested in or finds humorous? Did you find something that you never expected to be musical?

"Children must receive musical instruction as naturally as food, and with as much pleasure as they derive from a ball game...and this must happen from the beginning of their lives."  -Leonard Bernstein

Face Painting at Kindermusik Parties!

At Kindermusik Events, Miss Yvette paints lovely pictures! 



I was getting a pretty flower on my face!

The Human Voice:

Our voices do so much for us every day, communicating information or emotion, sounds of surprise or delight, and more. The voice is sometimes considered "the first instrument," the human voice has amazing possibility and range in speech and singing, as well as vocal sound effects. Children first participate in musical experiences by responding to them with sounds from their voices. As they grow, they begin to control those sounds, matching pitch and singing along, or singing on their own, without accompaniment. In Family Time class we will be exploring the sounds that our voices make in the next two classes, we will make glissandos, toot-toots, and more. We'll sing up high and down low, and make music together in vocal ensembles. The whole family gets to sing and play together, allowing us to experience first hand that every child and adult is musical by nature.

Here's an exercise to help children hear the difference between whispering, speaking and singing:

Rub hands together and say: whisper, whisper, whisper
Tap knees and and say: speaking, speaking, speaking
Wave arems side to side and say: singing, singing, singing

Then have them repeat after you:
This is my whispering voice (this is my whispering voice)
This is my speaking voice (this is my speaking voice)
This is my singing voice (this is my singing voice)

Here is a Silly Song you can sing!

Hey Lolly!
Hey Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Hey Lolly, Lolly-o
Hey Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Hey Lolly, Lolly-o
This is a silly kind of song. Hey Lolly, Lolly-o
You make it up as you go along. Hey Lolly, Lolly-o

Then substitute the words: mommy, daddy etc. for Lolly

Hey comment or give me a tweet: @Angelmusik!

Music Concepts and Contrasts

What are Music Concepts?


They're like different flavors for music, adding distinction and particularity to the song or dance. Volunte could be a sirl of chocolate, making the beat more or less intense depending on how much you use. Use a dab of lemon to change the pitch--how high or low do you want to go? Then sprinkle the rhythm with chopped nuts if you want something a little bouncy or leave the nuts off if you prefer your music smooth. so many choices. So many dimensions. So many possible combinations.

Choose a musical cupcake that is right for the occasion. The bounce-along beat of Belfast Hornpipe is perfect for a car ride, while the softer lilt of Home Sweet Hom makes a lovely bedtime son.g The good news is that you have an endless variety to choose from, all are delicious, and none is fattening.

"Our life is composed, like the harmony of the worl, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say?" Michel de Montaigne


SEE HOW THEY GROW

Your Infant and Concepts and Contrasts

As parents of newborns, we're constantly monitoring our infant's environment and mood. Is the room too hot or too cold? Are the lights too bring or too dim? Is the baby hungry or did I give her too much food, too fast? At the same time, your child is learning to control her environment by closing her eyes, going to sleep, or letting you know when she's uncomfortable. This "too much or too little" aspect of infancy is a study in contrasts that has its musical counterpart in concepts like smooth-bumpy, high-low, and loud-quiet. Newborns, for the most part, avoid extremes and like things mellow. But within a few months your child will enjoy dangling high over your head then swooping down low, and will laugh delightedly when you bounce her on your lap. During Family Time you can help your baby discover thise contrasting concepts, but feel free to take her to a quiet corner of the room if the toddler's rhythm instruments get too noisy. It's alla bout discovering the difference (and balance) between loud and quiet.

Your Toddler and Concepts and Contrasts

Toddlers use their emerging body mastery to learn about rhythm--and about such basic musical concepts as "high and low," "loud (forte) and quiet (piano)," and "bumpy (staccato) and smooth (legato)." And now that their sensory systems have settled in, most (but not all) children this age will want to be challenged more than they did as infants. Toddlers learn musical concept kinesthetically--that is, they learn them by feeling them in their bodies. When you and your child move to Doot Doot Deedle-eet, first smoothly and them bumpily, your child uses his whole body to sense the difference. He may not be able to say "smooth" and "bumpy" (that's why we say it for him, over and over), but his body know just what to do.

Your Preschooler and Concepts and Contrasts

By the time he is three or four, your child will have enough control over his body and voice, as well as enough awareness about musical concepts, to use these concepts to create a specific effect. He'll be able to be "quiet like a mouse" and "loud like a lion." He'll also be learning to coordinate what he does with his body with what he does with his voice. If he pretends to be a turtle, he'll both move and speak slowly--and he'll delight in the sudden shift to being a bumblebee, buzzing and zipping around. In fact, your preschooler may know enough about these concepts and contrasts and how they relate to the real world, that he'll find it funny if you ask him to be "quiet like a lion."



Leave a comment or tweet @Angelmusik

Patterns for Learning Success

Patterns are everywhere! Does your child notice them? Patterns are in words like button. consonant, vowel, double consonants, vowel, consonant. Patterns are in numbers. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc., Patterns are in nature, like the colors on a butterfly, the rings of trees, the flight paths of birds. So many patterns everywhere. Each week at Kindermusik we are working on patterns and helping your child be aware of them. Here are some ways we've worked on patterns this semester:

Village (ages 0 -18 months): Babies have been moving to high and low sounds as they come repeatedly in songs like: Irish Trot. We go around, go up, go around, go down, and go around again! Not only are we experiencing patterns, but also high and low sounds. The more experience with high and low, the better your child will understand this important language and musical concept later on.
 







Our Time (ages 18mo-3yrs): One of our class's favorite songs is: "Toe-Tapp'n Blues" which leads to egg-shak'n blues, swing'n blues, and much more! Our Time has really enjoyed exploring all the movements while listening to the pattern of the melody and chords in the song. This song is in the blues style and has its chord pattern:

Family Time (all ages): We clap and recite "Doctor Knickerbocker."  Feeling these patterns will help us move in space and in time and help children recognize when patterns change.

Patterns are so much fun, especially combined with Kindermusik. As you can see each age group follows a logical progression from experience to cognition, recognition, and production of their own patterns. That's the benefit and the value of Kindermusik, we grow with your child to give them the next step in the learning process!

Princess Party 2010

Click below to see all the pictures from our Kindermusik Princess Party!

Click here to view these pictures larger

Princess Party!

Very fun Princess Party last weekend!

The princesses are doing a scarf dance!

Active Learning

It has been said that on average we remember

20% of what we read
30% of what we hear
40% of what we see
50% of what we say
60% of what we do
90% of what we see, hear, say and do
(this now becomes Active Learning)

Source - Accelerated Learning for the 21st Century by Colin Rose and Malcolm J. Nicholl

The "birds eye" above the note is a fermata.

Integrated "active" learning is what you'll experience in every one of our Kindermusik classrooms. For instance, take a fermata. A what you say? (Look left fora picture.)When you come across a fermata in music, it means to hold the note or the rest, usually as long as the conductor tells you to.

Now, you might think a 15 month old has no use for a fermata. And you'd be right. However, a 15 month old does need to learn what the fermata can teach him. To pause, hold and wait until he's told to start again. What parent doesn't want that?

To teach the concept of a fermata, we get out the parachute and sing a song. One of the lines is "Hop up, my baby, three in a row". At the word "up", we lift the parachute up and hold it. The teacher then tells the class when to bring the parachute down by resuming to sing the rest of the phrase "my baby." The pause (hold) in between "up" and "my baby"is the fermata.

The children learn and rememberthe fermata concept (pause, hold and wait until told to go) by integrated active learning:

Hearing the parachute move up and down
Seeing the parachute move and stop
Holding onto the handles and moving the parachute up and down
Feeling the wind as the parachute moves up and down
Hearing the music stop (or stopping singing as they get old enough to sing)

As children get a bit older, we play musical games like riding stick ponies, and stopping our bodies when we hear the music pause, and then waiting until the music instructs us to go again.

Hear, See, Say, Do. The perfect recipe for active learning.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, Studio 3, who loves that a paused "up" parachute even looks like a fermata!

Legato and Staccato

Legato and staccato are opposite styles of articulation that can be experienced many ways to help children learn these concepts. Legato is smooth and connected and Staccato is detached and bumpy. Listening, moving & vocalizing smooth and bumpy activities will help them internalize & learn about legato and staccato.

Here's an activity to practice legato and staccato (smooth/bumpy)
Get a hula hoop!

Find ways to move slowly with your hoop and pretend you are floating down a gently flowing river:

a.. Stand inside hoop & hold it while walking slowly & gently tipping the hoop from side to side.
b.. Sit inside hoop & hold it gently tipping the hoop from side to side
c.. Sing-we're floating down the river...

Jumping: exploration jumping with the hoops

a.. Place the hoop on the floor and jump in and out of it.
b.. Hold hoop while jumping.
c.. Sing-two in the middle and you can't jump...

Here's the Song!

Floating Down the River
We're floating down the river. We're floating down below,
We're floating down the river, to the O-hi-O
Two in the middle and you can't jump Josie.
Two in the middle and you can't jump Josie
Two in the middle and you can't jump Josie, Oh my Susan Brown

Like this article?  Leave a Comment or Tweet!