Put some music into the mix this summer!

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 here.

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

Babies (0-18 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-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!

Feelings

Part Five: The Emotional Life of the Toddler

Control of emotions is one of the most complex challenges facing toddlers and their parents. children vary greatly in the intensity of how they experience and express feelings, depending on inborn temperamental factors, but it is a rare toddler whose feelings do not become intense and overwhelming at times. As parents provide both limits and loving support to their toddler, they are helping the child gradually learn ways of handling and modulating their feelings so that the tantrums of the 2-year-old ideally give way to emphatic verbal argument of the pre-schooler.

Developing competence in language and increasingly complex symbolic play skills will help this process immensely. Music as a fundamental route for the expression of human emotion, is an excellent tool for helping young children learn to identify and channel emotions. Very young children can identify and channel emotions. Very young children can identify music that makes them happy or sad, and enter enthusiastically into singing songs, or even verses within the same song that express emotion. Learning to identify loving, contented feelings and feelings of anger, fear and sadness are equally important human tasks. Musical expression of these wide ranges of emotion can help make them more manageable, less overwhelming, and much more understandable to the child who language skills are still emerging.

It is clear that many of the elements that make up a Kindermusik class enhance a toddler's ability to progress in these crucial tasks. The structure of the Kindermusik program and the opportunities it offers have the potential to directly enhance each parents ability to support his or her child in these tasks, and thus increase th joy inherent in parenting a bright, musical toddler.

Abracadabra - Words Really Are Magic

Part Four: The Emotional Life of the Toddler

One of the key developmental accomplishments for toddlers is communication through language. As children move into the second year of life, they begin to grasp the concept that words stand for objects and alter the even more complex concept that words can also stand for ideas and feelings. Many things go into helping this process develop. The stream of language from loving caregivers around the child is the most important.

Extending Kindermusik activities into the home with home materials such as literature books and music CDs not only reinforces the development of language, but also provides a loving ritual between parent and child.

Also helpful is the opportunity to play with toys -- which, after all, are small representations of larger objects, or symbols. A doll standing for a real baby helps pave the way for a word standing for a real object. Exploration Time in Kindermusik class is one example of associating language with objects.

Another element that contributes to language development, of course, is music. As children "tune in" to the elements of pitch, rhythm, contour, repetition and variation, they are learning to focus on the key elements of language. They are also learning about the pleasurable possibilities inherent in the human voice, and about how sounds carry meaning. For example, in the Our Time curriculum, songs with vocal play are fun for children to sing, but are also helping them develop essential language skills. As children grasp these concepts, they fall in love with the magic of language and the joy of being able to communicate their thoughts and needs through speech.

The Quest for Control

Part Three: The Emotional World of the Toddler

The granddady of developmental theorists, Sigmund Freud, talked about the major task of toddlerhood as being the acquisition of control over toileting. While most developmental scholars now have a much wider view, it is still important to keep in mind how crucial the issue of devleoping control for a toddler–control over body functions, over physical activities, over feelings, and over the world around the toddler.

Wise parents and educators strike a blance between structure and clear expectations on the one hand, and avoiding unnecessary regimentation and sources of conflict on the other. Toddlers do best when they are invited and attracted into ctivities, and diverted into other activities, rather than required to participate in them. Happily, their incredible curiosity and motivation to learn makes thier easier when the activities in quesion are as nturally appealing as music and movement.

In Kindermusik Our Time, children are invited to participate in activities, but at no time is there an expectation of performance. Activities such as the object and instrument exploration in Our Time remove any performance expectations because the parent becomes the teacher in a playful interaction that is controlled by the child’s desire to participate.

How Scarves Make Babies Smart!

Scarves are the Ultimate Multi-Sensory Toy! 

When moving with scarves and music the visual sense is stimulated by the bright colors, (babies love to track with thier eyes), the auditory sense is stimulated by listening to the music, and the sense of touch is also stimulated by the feel of the silky material on our skin. And this all happens at the same time.

In all my classes we love to play with scarves, it is a favorite activity! It is so much fun, we move expressively, play peek-a-boo and dress up with them. But did you know that playing with scarves helps your children's brains to develop ?

The best toys for babies are often common household items.
There are many activities you can do with babies using a silk scarf or a scrap of fabric.

According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, good toys for young children are ones that "match their stages of development and emerging abilities."  Infants do well with toys that help them develop motor skills (pushing and pulling, lifting and dropping, reaching and crawling), learn language, and find out about the world they live in.

Therefore, the best toys for babies are simple, uncomplicated ones that assist them in gaining all these seemingly small but important skills. There is no need to buy a bunch of expensive "educational" toys for this purpose. Many fun, engaging, and educational activities can be done with common items already in the house - like a simple swatch of fabric or a scarf.

Suggested Fabric Play Materials

• silk scarves
• fabric remnants
• cardboard boxes (cereal boxes, shoeboxes, etc.)
• ribbon or yarn

Learn Object Permanence
The idea that objects still exist even when they can no longer be seen is called object permanence.  It is essential to baby's developing cognitive skills since only after baby can imagine an unseen object, can she remember, reason, and plan.  You can help baby develop object permanence by playing peek-a-boo with a silk scarf.

Alternatively, the peek-a-boo game can be played with a small toy. First, show baby the toy. While baby is watching, place fabric over the toy. Say, "Where's the toy? Can you find the toy?" If baby does not reach for the fabric, uncover the toy yourself while excitedly saying, "We found it!"

Practice Gross Motor Skills
Pulling and pushing toys helps baby develop balance, whether she is standing, sitting, or lying on her stomach. To create a pull toy, tie 10 scarves or pieces of fabric together into a long strand. Stuff the strand into a box. Close the lid, but leave a bit of fabric sticking out. Encourage baby to pull on the fabric and watch the strand get longer and longer until the entire strand is out of the box. 1

Fun with Scarves!

Here is a list of versatile ideas for using scarves:

• Play Peek-A-Boo! (of course!)
• Scarf Parachute - Make a scarf toy parachute.
• Scarf Knapsack - Make a knapsack to carry your stuff by tying all four corners of the scarf together.
• Scarf Blindfold - Use a scarf as a blindfold and play "Blind Man's Bluff."
• Scarf Blankie - Use the scarf as a comforting "blankie" at home or on the road.
• Knot Scarves - Practice tying simple knots in a scarves.
• Static Scarves - Use a scarf to experiment with static electricity following these directions.
• Scarf Games - Use a scarf in place of a ball or beanbag for indoor games. It slows down the action and makes many games easy, safe, and fun for little ones. You can also use it to gently "tag" people in various games like "Tag- You're It" and "Tag Football."

Here's an idea: one person runs around with a scarf tied to their ankle, and the other person tries to step on the end of it. Play Tug-of-War with a scarf.

• Make a Scarf Puppet - Simply drape a scarf over one hand to create an imaginary puppet. Or make a Scarf Marionette!
• Scarf Dress-Up - Use scarves on the head (as a bandana, headband, turban, or ponytail holder), as a belt or sash around the waist, as a shawl, or over one eye (as a pirate). Use a scarf as a mask (like a bandit), or tuck one end in the back of pants to make a "tail." Pretend scarves are jewelry - and make a bracelet or necklace. Use scarves as a bandage or sling. Scarves make great capes allowing imagination to take flight!

Note: To be safe, never tie a scarf around a young child's neck. Use safety pins to fasten scarves to clothing.

• Scarf Flag - Use a scarf as a flag or to wave goodbye to someone.
• Scarf Rope - Tie a bunch of scarves together to make a scarf rope.
• Scarf Leash - Tie a stuffed animal to a scarf and drag it along the floor.
• Scarf Pendulum - Tie different size toys to the end of a scarf , then slowly and gently swing it back and forth. Observe how the motion changes with each toy.
• Scarf Pulley - Place the scarf over a doorknob, tie objects to each end, use it to create a pulley.
• Scarf Forts - Use scarves to create walls for forts made with furniture or blocks. Juggling with Scarves - Preschool-age children can develop pre-juggling skills that help to improve concentration, eye-hand coordination, tracking (a pre-reading skill), fine motor skills, and they get a cardio-vascular work-out too. Start by learning to toss and catch one scarf. Then, as coordination develops (which may take a long time) progress to 2 and 3 scarves. Click here to watch a pictorial demonstration. You'll also want to check out this list of fun things to do as you juggle one or two scarves.
• Scarf Paint Brush - Use a scarf dipped in washable paint to make artistic patterns on paper.
• Scarf Vision - Hold a scarf up to the light and see how things look through it.
• Make a Scarf Kite - Use these directions to make one just like Ben Franklin used!
• Scarf Toy Trampoline - Have 2 or more people hold the corners of a scarf and bounce a toy up and down in the middle of it, like a trampoline. 2

A fun activity for your toddler
Dancing with your toddler is fun, and adding scarves to the mix brings the entertainment to a whole new level. This game will be a hit with your 15-month-old, who's in a "milestone period" - a time of very rapid development - and is particularly interested in moving in new and different ways.  This is great for 15 month olds, but older and younger kids will enjoy it, too! 


Children learn to develop gross motor skills, rhythm, color identification, social play, and language while having a great time!

What you'll need: A variety of music and several scarves. But save your long winter scarves for bundling up; light, fashion scarves work best (your local thrift shop might be a good source if you don't have any). You can also use handkerchiefs, cloth napkins, or bandanas.

Clear some space, turn on the music, and join your toddler on the floor. Drop the scarves at her feet, keeping one or two for yourself. As your child watches, make your scarf "dance" in time to the music. She might just observe for a while, or she may join right in by shaking her own scarf.

As you dance your scarves, try playing peekaboo in time to the music. Place a scarf over your head and let her grab it. Or drape one on her head and let her pull it off.

Switch out the music so that you can try different tempos. Float your scarves gracefully for slow music and jiggle them jauntily for quicker music. Work on colors by saying, "Do you want a turn with the blue one?" or "Is Mommy under this pink scarf?"

Finally, try a little teamwork by having her hold one end of the scarf while you hold the other, and dance in place or around the room. You can also hold her in your arms while you dance with a big scarf, swirling it back and forth around the two of you.

When you're done, encourage your child to help you put the scarves in a bag. And keep the bag in a handy place (but not one where your toddler can get to it); as your child continues her rapid growth, she'll enjoy playing this game again and again, and she'll find all kinds of inventive ways to dance with the scarves.


Note: Scarves and other long, string-like objects pose a strangulation hazard, so make sure to watch your child carefully and never leave her alone with them.

Couple of Kindermusik Ideas for playing with scarves:

• Lap Baby: Adult can lie baby in her lap or outstretched legs and move scarf around baby's body.
• Crawler: Adult crawls or sits with baby and explores different ways to move the scarf with the music.
• Walker: While baby holds the scarf, adult helps him move it to the music. Suggest that the scarf hide behind the back during the silence. Some babies may move independently with their own scarves. Encourage adults to continue moving also.

What is your favorite way to play with scarves?  Leave a comment or tweet @Angelmusik!

1 http://ping.fm/QrNd1 Baby Games to Play with a Silk Scarf: Simple Developmental Activities for Infants Jul 24, 2009 Nicole Fravel
2 http://ping.fm/H6clo Newborn Workout and Exercise Program Fun with Scarves! By Diane Flynn Keith, on January 8th, 2009
3 http://ping.fm/LGPvW Let's Play! Scarf Dance by Evonne Lack Last updated: January 2009

How Children Learn Words!

How many words do you think your children learned this week?

The answer varies. While babies are in a recessive language stage and take in every word and label, toddlers are in an expressive stage with a vocabulary that grows to several thousand words by the age three. Preschool-aged children are in a storytelling stage and love to learn and express new words that way.

 By reading together, your children will internalize basic skills and concepts important for true literacy, such as expanding vocabulary, promoting critical thinking, and providing predictability.

The Power of Reading: When you read to children, you are building pathways in their brains needed for successful reading experiences. They will develop auditory perception that allows them to think about how words sound. Listening to stories helps children enhance their vocabularies and use longer sentences; it increases their attention spans, ability to focus on what is being said and gives them a desire to read.

As you read together, ask specific questions about the characters and the action of the story and the colors and shapes of the illustrations. Then try leaving out key words or phrases, allowing toddlers and preschoolers to "help" by contributing the missing words while toddlers can assist in turning the pages. Keep your baby engaged by "bouncing" to the repeated phrases through out the book.

A Rough Guide for Language Acquisition:

• Expect first words between 12 and 18 months.
• There will probably be a "spurt" of language development before 2 years.
• Anticipate hearing 4 to 5 word sentences by 4 years.
• Grammar should be correct most of the time by 4 years.
• "Other people" will understand almost everything your child says by the time he or she is 4!.

List of on-line resources to help teach your children how to read!

1. Games, printouts and information to help children learn to read! http://www.starfall.com/
2. Great selection of books to help with reading/language acquisition that you can buy or go check out at the library http://www.kaplanco.com/childrens-books.asp
3. HELP: Head Start English: Language Learners website: excellent list of book for children learning English or any child. http://www.hellp.org/tools/docs/list%20of%20children's%20books.pdf

Get your Children Moving!

The Movement-Vision-Reading Connection:  Our visual sense works when our eyes are actively moving. When the body and head move, the vestibular system is activated, and so the eye muscles are strengthen as they move in response.  The more the eyes move, the more the muscles of both eyes work together.  Later on, this eye teaming will enable toddlers to focus on objects as well as to track and then help them to be able to concentrate later as they learn to read in school.

 An Exercise in Sensorimotor Learning

(which helps the movement/vision/reading connection)

I've Been Workin on the Railroad:

In this activitiy children hear actions being labeled, gross motor and locomotor skills are being developed and they also learn stop and go movements.  All these skills help the brain to strengthen neural connections which increase the child's learning ability.

SAY: First we need to fix the RR track!

DO: Clasp hands together and raise them over one shoulder as if lifting a heavy hammer. Bend at the waist and thrust arms down, as if hammering. Label all actions then begin singing first part of song. 

SAY: Whew! That was hard work. We deserve a break; let's run around the room while we sing Dinah won't you blow!

SING: Dinah, won't you blow section while running. Freeze and stop singing after the final note of this section.   SAY: Stop! Back to work on those RR tracks!

PUT IT TOGETHER: Start the song again, singing and moving to the "I've been working...."section followed by the "Dinah won't you blow section". Do the hammer motion to slow part and then running during Dinah part. Repeat

I've Been Workin on the Railroad

I've been workin on the railroad all the live long day.
I've been workin on the railroad just to pass the time away.
Don't you hear the whistle blowing?
Rise up so early in the morn
Don't you hear the Captain shouting, Dinah blow your horn?
Dina won't you blow, Dinah won't you blow, Dinah won't you blow your horn
Dina won't you blow, Dinah won't you blow, Dinah won't you blow your horn

Please leave a comment or Tweet @Angelmusik

Even Newborn Infants Can Feel the Beat

I am always looking for articles on how music affects babies and toddlers.  I found a couple great articles from the Discover website at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/01/27/even-newborn-infants-can-feel-the-beat/  The following is a fantastic article on how even the tiniest of babies can feel a beat and notice changes in music.

Babies just a few days old can already identify a rhythmic pattern, and their brains show surprise when the music skips a beat, according to a new study.

Researchers played recordings that used high-hat cymbals, snare drums, and bass drums to make a funky little beat while monitoring the infants' brain activity with non-invasive electroencephalogram brain scanners, and found that newborns respond to a skipped beat in the same way that adults do.

The ability to follow a beat is called beat induction. Neither chimpanzees nor bonobos - our closest primate relatives - are capable of beat induction, which is considered both a uniquely human trait and a cognitive building block of music. Researchers have debated whether this is inborn or learned during the few first months of life, calibrated by the rocking arms and lullabies of parents.

While the researchers who conducted the new study say their findings are evidence that beat induction in innate, others argue that the newborns could have already learned to identify rhythmic patterns by listening to their mothers' heartbeats while in the womb.

In the study, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 14 sleeping newborns were exposed to repeated recordings of a rock drum accompaniment pattern and to four variations of that pattern. Babies were usually exposed to patterns with a downbeat. On rare occasions, the downbeat was missing. Of the 306 consecutive drum sequences presented to newborns, one in 10 lacked a downbeat. Each newborn wore scalp electrodes during the study. Drum sequences missing a downbeat elicited a signature, split-second brain response that has been linked in adults to the violation of one's expectations.

Lead researcher Winkler says the findings suggest that a rhythmic sensibility is very important for infants' brain development, and says it may help them respond to the rhythmic and repetitive baby talk that lays the foundation of all future language learning.  Therefore, evolution may have favored brains wired to rock for learning purposes, said Winkler, and "music went along for the ride".

Why Music is so Important

Smart Moves by Carla Hannaford

Movement is essential to learning. Movement integrates and anchors new information into our neural networks.Every time we move in an organized . . . manner, full brain activation and integration occurs, and the door to learning opens.To "pin down" a thought, there must be movement. A person may sit quietly to think, but to remember a thought, an action must be used to anchor it. We must materialize it with words. When I write, I'm making connections with thought by moving my hand.When we talk about what we've learned, the physical movements internalize and solidify it in nerve networks.

Acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter, is released across synapses of activated neurons to stimulate muscle function during talking. (This) . . . stimulates and attracts dendritic growth in the area, thus increasing nerve networks. Many of us have a distinct tendency to think better and more freely while engaged in a repetitive, low concentration physical task. I've heard people say that they think best when they are swimming laps in a pool, taking a walk, or while shaving.

We have known for years that children who miss the vitally important crawling stage may exhibit learning difficulties. Crawling, a cross-lateral movement, activates development of the corpus callosum (the nerve pathways between the two hemispheres of the cerebrum).

In a study of more than 500 Canadian children, students who spent an extra hour each day in gym class performed notably better on exams than less active children.

Movement facilitates the development of increased blood vessels that carry learning-essential water, oxygen and nutrients to the brain.

From the earliest grades, school children are taught not to move their bodies during class.   Furthermore, recess has been dropped from three to two times a day (if your child is lucky)  and PE is only once or twice a week for 30 minutes.

Do you have a suggestion for getting our kids moving again in school?

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.

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