Toys! Toys! Toys!

Part of the fun of having a baby is shopping for the toys. Take a peek at this quick list to see what babies like to play with.

Babies learn by interacting with loved ones and by exploring their surroundings. Babies' brains are constantly developing connections that are created by what they see, hear, feel, taste and smell. The following toys stimulate our babys' senses and help our babies learn.

Toys that babies can enjoy!

• Music: Babies are never too young for music. Sing songs, play CD's with nursery rhymes, and buy a musical mobile. Expose your baby to a variety of music and see what type he prefers.
• Baby gyms/activity centers: These offer a lot of interesting stimulation. The bright contrasting colors and interesting shapes and sounds they make stimulate your baby's brain. As your baby grows and learns how to reach out to grasp at objects, these activity centers become even more interesting. Change them around as much as you can to keep your baby's attention. Many have clips that you can put different items on - take advantage of this and get creative with it. Play mats that have different textures are also a good idea.
• Soft toys: These are fascinating to babies. They love soft toys with distinct facial features. Soft toys come in a variety of textures, which provide a way for babies to learn through their sense of touch.
• Mobiles: These come in a variety of different styles, shapes, sizes and colors. If you want a visually stimulating one, you'll have to do a "sight test." Most mobiles have lovely attachments but what's the use if all your baby sees is a boring underside of a toy. Get under the mobile or hold it above your head to see what your baby will really be looking at! If it looks interesting and if it has a good variety of contrasting colors - then you've got a winner!
• Toys with noise: Rattles and wrist toys are great for babies up to 6 months of age. From about 4 months, he'll enjoy playing with "squeaky" toys that he can squeeze to make sound. This is an excellent toy for learning cause and effect.
• Balls: soft balls covered in textured materials that have little chimes or bells in them are enjoyed by most babies. Just slowly roll the ball back and forth in front of your baby - she'll delight in the sound and movement of the ball. As your baby grows, she'll learn how to roll the ball all by herself.
• Books: Reading to babies is such a valuable activity. Choose books that are short and uncomplicated. Make sure the pictures are simple and have contrasting colors. Board books and cloth books are fun for this age. Bath books are a good idea too. To enhance your baby's sense of touch, introduce simple touch and feel books. Talk about the feel of the different textures.
• Shape sorters: From about 9 months of age, your baby will enjoy using these toys as they help to develop eye-hand coordination.
• Nesting cups are also good for babies this age.
• Building blocks: These are one of the most versatile toys around. Babies are not yet ready to build, but they will enjoy knocking down towers that you build for them! They will also gain a sense of pride when they learn how to bang them together! Choose ones that have bright colors.
• Pop up toys: At around 9-10 months, your baby will most likely be able to learn how to use these simple pop up toys. They're excellent for developing cause and effect.
• Musical instruments: A small drum or a xylophone is a definite winner. They teach eye-hand coordination; and it is also a good idea to show your baby how to use them because they learn by imitation.
• Puzzles: As your baby approaches 12 months, you might begin introducing very simple puzzles. I'm referring to puzzles that have two pieces and ones that have simple shapes, such as a circle. Once again you'll need to show your baby how to use them.

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

Your Infant and Beat and Rhythm

The daily rhythms of life change when a newborn joins a family. Suddenly, everyone must adjust to the new sleep and wake cycles, and to the baby's pattern of comfort and discomfort. And with most babies, these rhythms change often and unpredictably! No sooner do you think you've established a pattern of sleeping, feeding, playing and diapering, than your child changes the tempo, and you must learn to keep time all over again.

You and your infant are discovering beats and rhythms with each interaction. You listen closely to the tempo of your newborn's breathing. You sense her pattern of sucks and pauses as she feeds. The two of you develop brief but powerful back-and-forth moments when you make eye contact. Without any self-consciousness you begin using baby-talk, because your baby responds so naturally to a rhythmic voice. From the moment she's born, your child engages you in an intricate dance where you are intuitively aware of every subtle change in the music.

Reading to Baby

Reading to Baby in a pleasant environment helps her learn that reading is pleasurable. It also helps her begin to decode language. Infants younger than six months can distingish a wide range of speech contrasts. By eight months many can distinguish familiar words from unfamiliar words.

Music

Music! It's the panacea for many of the challenges that wreak havoc as children grow up. It calms babies. It brings joy to toddlers. It builds confidence in preschoolers. It develops far-reaching and long-lasting skills that grow musicians, creative problem solvers, and confident lovers of learning.

My single best advice for young parents? Let music permeate your home (and car)! Music makes parenting more joyful. Music helps children unfold into wonderful, responsible, caring adults. And you don't have to be a musician to bring music in your child's life

Sound Maps

It is important to include a wide range of timbres in Baby's environment. This includes hearing the sounds of many languages. Each kind of sound maps new connections in Baby's brain. Repeated listening solidifies these connections.

Timbre

In Kindermusik class we explore a variety of musical instruments with different timbres (pronounced tambers) or characteristic sound qualities, such as the scratching of egg shakers, the ringing of bells and the resonant boom of the drum. As Baby or Toddler hears this variety of sounds, she is developing the listening vocabulary necessary for sound discrimination preceding language. And if she play the instruments, she learns that she can create a nice-sounding result.

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Learning to be a Parent

"Learning to be a parent is not a matter of adopting a certain set of attitudes, but of expressing one's personality in the task of responding flexibly to the child's needs." Sheila Kitzinger

"According to a new York Longitudinal Study, three major factors in early learning environments lead to competency in adulthood:
1. Rich sensory environments
2. Freedom to explore with few restrictions, and
3. Available parents that acted as consultants."
Smart Moves, by Carla Hannaford


Kindermusik Teacher
503-708-2827
web site: www.kindermusikwithangie.kindermusik.net
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The Movement-Vision-Reading Connection

"Our visual sense functions...when our eyes are actively moving..., when the body and head move, the vestibular sytem is activated, and the eye muscles strenghten 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 these now-toddlers to focus as well as to track and to conentrate as they learn to read in school. Smart Moves, by Carla Hannaford

Kindermusik Teacher
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Active Listening

"Active listening is a process that goes beyond the physical act of hearing. It is an intellectual and emotional process that integrates a full range of inputs in a search for the meaning of and an understanding of a sender's message. It involves listening between the lines to hear what is not said as wll as what is said."
Early childhood Education, Blending Theory, Blending Practice by Lawrence J. Johnson, M.J. LaMontagne, Peggy M. Elgas, and Anne M. Bauer


Kindermusik Teacher
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Sensitivity

Hearing music with contrasts in register and timbre helps Baby become more sensitive not only to music, but to his whole environment.

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Kindermusik Village

Two key elements of the Kindermusik Village learning environment are variety and repetition. Through exposure to variety (of objects, instruments, people, movements, songs, etc.), an array of possible skills, aptitudes, and perceptions are stimulated in the form of new neural connections. But not all these connections will remain intact. It is only through repetition that neural connections are strengthened and that possibility becomes ability.

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One More Time

Baby can enjoy an activity for many repetitions. With this "practice" new connections are made in Baby's brain, actually helping it grow, and Baby experiences the satisfaction of intentionally causing an effect in his world. In one study on this subject, an eleven month old joyfully rolled a ball to a willing adult playmate 180 time before losing interest! Sound familiar?

Kindermusik Teacher
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web site: www.kindermusikwithangie.kindermusik.net
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Sound Maps

It is important to include a wide range of timbres in Baby's environment. This includes hearing the sounds of many languages. Each kind of sound maps new connections in Baby's brain. Repeated listening solidifies these connections.


Kindermusik Teacher
503-708-2827
web site: www.kindermusikwithangie.kindermusik.net
Become a fan of my Facebook page!

Musical Instruments

In class we explore a variety of musical instruments with different timbres (pronounced "tam-bers" or characteristic sound qualities, such as the scratching of egg shakers, the ringing of baby bells, and the resonant "boom" of the drum. As Baby hears this variety of sounds, she is developing the listening vocabulary necessary for sound discrimination preceding language. And if she plays the instruments, she learns that she can create a nice-sounding result.


Kindermusik Teacher
503-708-2827
web site: www.kindermusikwithangie.kindermusik.net
Become a fan of my Facebook page!

Sensory Learning

As you and Baby experience the contrast between a smoothly rolling ball and a jumpy, bouncing ball, she is understanding on a sensory level the difference between smooth, sustained movement, and sharp, detached movement. This is an important element of music and language.

Kindermusik Teacher
503-708-2827
web site: www.kindermusikwithangie.kindermusik.net
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Vestibular System

Moving in different directions and in a variety of ways is important to the development of Baby's vestibular system, which effects his/her developing sense of balance.

Kindermusik Teacher
503-708-2827
web site: www.kindermusikwithangie.kindermusik.net
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Vestibular System

Moving different directions and in a variety of ways is important to the development of Baby's vestibular system, which effects his developing sense of balance.

Kindermusik Teacher
503-708-2827
blog: www.kindermusikwithangie.blogspot.com

Routine

A balance between routine and novelty is important for Baby to experience stimulation and mastery. As with the hello song that we sing in class each week, this song is an important element of consistence for sixteen weeks of class. With repetition, this will become the familiar musical cue that class is now starting.


Kindermusik Teacher
503-708-2827
web site: http://www.kindermusikwithangie.kindermusik.net/
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