Summer Music Activities

There’s no better way to enhance your summer fun than to blend music into your daily life. Studies have shown that learning while exercising the right brain with activities such as music helps improve creativity, memory, and language learning.

Did you know that involvement in music and movement activities from an early age helps children develop good social and emotional skills as well? Social and emotional development has also been linked to school-readiness and even higher academic testing scores.

An easy way to blend music, movement, learning and fun for your child this summer is to enroll him or her into a Kindermusik summer camp. To find a class near you, click on kindermusik.com or give Kindermusik with Angie a call: 503-708-2827!

For a few ideas to incorporate music into your family’s activities, read the activities section below!

Babies                                        0 to 18 mos

Light and motion are incredibly important to your baby’s development. You can help your baby improve his or her visual literacy by encouraging his or her eyes to move. Spread out a blanket under a shade tree and lie on the blanket with your baby. Watch the motion of the tree branches as they sway in the breeze. Watch the clouds go by and sing a favorite song. It doesn’t matter if you’re a “good” singer or not, your baby will love the sound of your voice.

You might just find the perfect sing-along song on Kindermusik’s “Wiggle, Waggle, Loop-de-Loo” CD.

Toddlers                                        18 mos to 3 yrs

Ask your toddler what kinds of sounds different animals make, repeating the sounds with him or her. Get creative with your choices, what sound does a grumpy gorilla make? Then talk about comparisons: roaring lions versus chirping robins. If you have an older toddler, add an extra challenge by having him or her make the sound of an animal that is associated with their hiding place: buzzing like a bee if they’re by the flower bed or croaking like a frog if they hide under a bush.

The perfect song for this activity might just be found on Kindermusik’s “Frog Went A-Dancing” CD.

Big Kids                                                 5 yrs & up

Go on a treasure hunt in your own backyard! Collecting things is a favorite preschool activity. Children in this age group are expanding their memory skills and the joy of finding a new or interesting item is particularly rewarding. Start out by deciding on a category that won’t be hard to find (leaves, rocks, etc.) or take along a notebook and you can write down the colors of the cars parked on the street. Once you have a goal, start your search! After you’ve done this a few times, come up with more specific and more challenging objects to seek. Below are a few additional ideas:

• Head outside and look for things that are purple, or polka-dotted or try to find smooth things, or bumpy objects.
• Play a music game. Try to fit songs into categories. Is it fast or slow? Loud or soft?
• Decorate an empty shoebox for your collection!
• If it’s too hot to go outside, give your preschooler a piece of paper with the name of a category on it. Have him or her draw pictures of items that fit into that category.

Kindermusik’s “Rupert the Wrong-Word Pirate” CD might just have the perfect “tune” to accompany this activity — after all — pirates LOVE treasure hunts!

Find these CDs, songs, activities, and MORE at play.kindermusik.com

Join in the Fun this Summer!

Games for Babies: Beak-it

This Article was originally posted Friday, May 14th on the Studio3Music Website.  I will be posting a series of articles about exercises and games we can do with our babies and toddlers.

In my Village Classes, we’ve been exercising little arms, legs, and brains to one of my favorite poems.

One Misty Moisty Morning


One misty moisty morning,
When cloudy was the weather,
I chanced to see an old man dressed all in leather.
He began to compliment
And I began to grin.
How do you do?
How do you do?
And, how do you do again?

When we get to the repeated “How do you do?” section, we stop the exercises and “beak-it” the babies on each word “you.” Beak-it? Yes!  The touch is paired with language, either the poem above, or a simple “beep” or “beak-it.”

- posted by Miss Anita, From Studio 3, who loves the look of glee on a baby’s face during a “Beak-It! Game!”   web site:  http://studio3music.com/category/games-for-babies/

You can learn this game and many more exercises in our fabulous children's music class: Kindermusik Village.  Sign up today!  Call 503-708-2827

Reading with Toddlers

This is a great article about reading with our toddlers! It offers suggestions of ways to get started and the benefits to our children when we read to them.

The main thing to keep in mind about reading with toddlers is that it has more to do with pointing and talking than with sitting still and listening.

There are many great options for toddler books. Board books fall into two categories: storybooks and content books. A good toddler storybook often shows the sequence of common routines—such as bedtime, taking a walk, or bath time. Helen Oxenbury’s Tom and Pippo series is a great example. A toddler and his imaginary companion, a sock monkey, go through simple activities together under the loving care of mom and dad. While reading storybooks, take time to talk about what is happening and make connections to what your family does that is either the same or different. Books that incorporate touching and feeling, like Pat the Bunny and any book with flaps, create moments for interaction that are ideal for this age.

Board books by Sandra Boyton combine humorous stories with learning concepts, such as animal sounds, and opposites. Your child’s ability to remember and her vocabulary are growing tremendously, and books that introduce first words and emotions feed her desire for information. The structure of a book helps her organize what she is learning. (It is a good idea to save alphabet and counting books for another year or so.)

Parents read to share their own love of books, to bond with their child, to stimulate their child’s language development (among other great reasons). All of these goals can be reached with a toddler by following these recommendations.

How to encourage reading in a toddler:

• Keep durable books in a visible and easy-to-access location.
• Allow your child to choose what to read whenever possible.
• Provide your child a variety of books—story, learning, humorous, rhyming books.
• Build several moments for reading into your daily routine.
• Resist taking away reading time as a consequence. (“Mommy will not read a bedtime story tonight if…)
• Limit television viewing.

How to manage reading with a toddler:

• Be willing to read only parts of a book and pages out of order.
• Read when asked.
• Let your child hold the book and turn the pages.
• Sit close to your child, as much as possible, while reading.

While you are fostering a love of books, disregard the commonly held idea that you must read to your child for a set amount of time (20 minutes) in one sitting everyday, or that you are a failure if you can’t get your toddler to sit still to “read.” Home literacy has a lot to do with having dynamic conversation, using a varied vocabulary, and modeling a love of reading. If, in your literacy rich home, you continue to make books available and offer to read on a routine basis, your child will take interest. At some point, the momentum to read together will shift from you to your child…and then be ready to sit down with a pile of picture books.

Credits: 60 second parent website: great articles! http://www.sixtysecondparent.com/_webapp_218785/Reading_with_Toddlers