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

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!

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!

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!

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

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Bringing the Learning Home Part 2

Guess Who?
At your next get-together, pull each guest aside and record them singing a verse from a favorite song. Encourage people to disguise their voices, and when everyone's had a turn, play back the recording and see if kids can guess who's who.

Lullaby and Goodnight:
Even if the lullabies your great-grandmother sang to your grandmother are long forgotten, singing to your children from infancy on will connect you to the generations past. No one cares if you know all the words or sometims sing off-key. This is a private but powerful time that will sooth not only your tired children, but you, too.

Walt Whitman

"I hear Ameirca singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics--each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam...
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench--the hatter singing as he stands....
The delicious singing of the mother...or of the girl sewing or washing.
Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day--At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths, thier strong melodios songs."
Walt Whitman

Spring

Spring
I love the spring.
For every day
There's something new.
That's come to stay.
Another bud
Another bird
Another blade
The sun has stirred.

New Classes Starting in April

Village class: Dew Drops starting Wednesday April 7th 9:30 am, ages: 0-18 months

Our Time Class: Away We Go! starting Friday, April 2nd, 9:30 am, ages 18 mo – 3 yrs

Sign & Sing Class: Sess A/B, starting Wednesday April 7th 10:30 am, ages 6mos – 3 yrs

Dance, Dance, Dance

Put on your favorite tunes, hold your baby in your arms, grab her rattle, and shimmy round the room. If your "baby" is old enough to do her own dancing, hold hands and boogie together. Remember, the last dance is always a slow one: go cheek-to-cheek, and you might even get her to nap.

Visual Rhythm

Rhythm patterns are sequences. Help your preschooler discover vusual sequences using pattern blocks purchased at a toy store or educational supply house. Keep the blocks in a basket on the kitchen counter and let your child make fun designs while you get dinner. For the toddler who'd rather bang blocks together, see if you can coax him into a rhythmic beat: tap, tap, tappy-tap!

Blue Danube Waltz

Today waltzes may conjure up images of elegance: ball gowns, tiaras, and lovely gliding step, but two hundred years ago the waltz was considered shockingly risque'. Here was advance where you touched your partner's body and were swept into a dizzying whirl around the ballroom floor. Simply scandalous! When the waltz was danced at a ball in London, the Times reported:

"We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced...at the English         court on Friday last...it is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressor on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest       reserve which as hitherto been considered distinctive of English Females."

Despite such scandal, during the nineteenth century this Austrian peasant dance conquered the ballrooms of Europe. Vienna was the home of the waltz, and two Austrian composers, Johann Strauss I and II, were the nineteenth-century equivalent of Cole Porter, Elvis, and the Beatles rolled into one. This father and son duo was at the top of the charts for nearly 75 years.

Strauss the younger wrote On the Beautiful Blue Danube in 1867, just weeks after the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph suffered a terrible defeat by Prussia at the battle of Sadowa. It was a dark time for Austria, but Strauss's new waltz glittered. First performed as a choral work by the Vienna Men's Choral Association, the orchestral version quickly became Strauss's biggest hit, cementing the composer's reputation as Vienna's Waltz king.

Beat, beat, beat

"Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom tom
When the jungle shadows fall,
Like the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock
As it stands against the wall.
Like the drip, drip, drip of the rain drops
When the summer showers through,
A voice within me keeps repeating
You, you, you."
Cole Porter

Legato and Staccato

Legato and staccato are opposite styles of articulation that can be experienced through a variety of modes, heightening children's awareness of this element of music. While legato is smooth and connected staccato is detached. Important ways to experience these concepts include using legato and staccato movements, hearing legato and staccato articulation, and singing and playing vocally with legato and staccato articulation.

Music's Power

Take full advantage of music's power for learning, delight, and bonding. Nurturing a true music lover begins at birth (and probably even before).

Try following this prescription (begin practicing during pregnancy):

. Sing EVERY night at bedtime. (You don't have to be a singer...the child hears the heart behind the voice.)
. Enjoy dancing with abandon every day to favorite recording. (You don't have to be a dancer...all movement supports growth and development.)
. Accompany every diaper change with a nursery rhyme.
. Play calming music at naptime(s) or meltdowns.
. Incorporate a time to bounce to a beat. (Just bouncing steadily and stopping will evoke spontaneous giggles.)
. Rock, rock, rock.
-Carol Penney, Kindermusik educator and employee-owner

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

Barefoot

Barefoot is best for Baby. Baby learns through his senses, especially on the bottoms of the feet.

Kindermusik Teacher
503-708-2827
web site: www.kindermusikwithangie.kindermusik.net
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Stop and Go

Music is sound and movement, and it is silence and stillness. Just as we experience sculpture in terms of where it begins and ends in space, we experience music in terms of where it begins and ends in time that surrounds it.

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

Free Kindermusik Asian New Year Party

Come Celebrate The Year Of The Tiger With Kindermusik!

We'll be Singing, Dancing, Marching in a Dragon Parade, Playing games, Noise Making, Face Painting, and Eating New Year's Treats

Saturday, February 13th
10:00 - 11:00 am
at
The New Day Center for the Arts
5516 SE Foster Rd, Portland

RSVP: 503-708-2827 / jansonfamily@spiritone.com
Yes, please bring a friend!

If you are unable to attend call to set up a
Free preview class!

Presented by Kindermusik with Angie
kindermusikwithangie.kindermusik.net; kindermusikwithangie.blogspot.com