Minds On Music – The Kindermusik Blog
For three generations, Kindermusik has helped millions of children around the world build a strong foundation for a lifetime of learning.
We know that the most successful multilingual learners are exposed to non-native languages in the first years of life, but using music as a teaching tool boosts their ability to achieve fluency faster.
Continue reading “6 Ways Music Builds Successful Multilingual Learners”
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Regular schedules provide a framework that orders a young child’s world. While predictability can be tedious for adults, children thrive on sameness and repetition. “Knowing what to expect from relationships and activities helps children become more confident,” says Dr. Peter Gorski, assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School (Asher).
Tips for parents: The days never seem
to go exactly as planned with young children, but it’s helpful for both of you to have a general schedule for the day. Naps and moods will improve tremendously, and you’re likely to have fewer outbursts to deal with. Of course, one predictable weekly activity that we highly recommend is… Kindermusik!
– Contributed by Theresa Case, whose Greenville, SC program, Kindermusik at Piano Central Studios, is proudly among the top 1% of Kindermusik programs worldwide.
Early childhood education is important, and Kindermusik International believes that you – the parent – are your child’s first and best teacher. But what to do with your child until he is 7 years old? We’d like to recommend Kindermusik classes!
Music classes in the early years that include parental involvement and focus on learning in a fun, developmentally appropriate way inspire a lifelong love for learning.
Practice with steady beat, enjoying movement activities, and playing instruments help develop coordination and motor skills necessary for cutting with scissors, holding a pencil, or kicking a ball, for example.
Music classes that are teaching children rhymes and then later, the basics of beginning to read music pave the way to literacy.
Music classes give your child a place to practice those all-important social skills, like cooperatively play, sharing, and following directions.
The best music classes will encourage your child to think creatively, developing critical thinking skills and the ability to problem-solve.
In an environment where process, not performance, is stressed, music classes build self-confidence and a willingness to try new things.
Music classes that gradually increase a child’s independence at the class help the child more successfully transition to the school classroom.
In these classes, children have the opportunity to bond and interact with their teacher, learning to listen and respond to someone other than the special adults who surround them at home.
Science and research have proven time and time again that music positively impacts a child in all areas of development – social/emotional, language, cognitive, physical, and language/literacy.
From music skills to life skills, it’s all there in Kindermusik, where music and learning play! Find a class near you and try a free Kindermusik class on us today.
Written by Theresa Case, whose Kindermusik program at Piano Central Studios in Greenville, SC, is proudly among the top 1% of Kindermusik programs worldwide.
In early childhood education, we understand that teaching children involves celebrating the uniqueness of each child and preparing them for academic success beyond the preschool classroom. As creators of a standards-aligned daycare and preschool curriculum, we also know just how important these early years can be to a child’s lifelong learning abilities. Early childhood education may look like fun and games (and it is!) but the skills learned through these “fun and games” as part of a daycare or preschool curriculum can help a child make a smoother transition to Kindergarten.
When used as part of a daycare curriculum, research shows music can engage young 
learners and teach them these key skills needed for continuing academic success. For example, a new study shows that children participating in ABC Music & Me, our daycare curriculum, 30 minutes each week experience a 32 percent literacy gain when compared to other children.
To evaluate the effectiveness of Kindermusik’s ABC Music & Me curriculum, an independent research firm, SEG Measurement, conducted a national, multi-site study* following 299 preschool children during the 2012-13 school year. ABC Music & Me is a supplemental early childhood curriculum that uses music and movement to engage young children while teaching a variety of skills critical to later school success. Extensive at-home materials, provided to parents monthly with each new curriculum unit, inform families of their children’s classroom experiences and provide the means for continuing classroom learning at home.
The findings indicate that students in classes using the ABC Music & Me program made significantly greater gains in language and literacy skills as compared to students in classes that did not use any of the ABC Music & Me program components.
The study examined the effectiveness of the ABC Music & Me program by comparing the growth in language and literacy skills among preschool students receiving the ABC Music & Me curriculum to a comparable group of preschoolers who did not receive the ABC Music & Me program.
The study incorporated a pre- and post-test treatment- and control-group design. All participating students took the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) Pre-K Assessment** at both the beginning and end of the school year. Students in the treatment group received ABC Music & Me instruction and activities as part of their preschool curriculum during the school year. Students in the control group did not receive any ABC Music & Me instruction or activities.
Students in the control and treatment groups attended the same or comparable schools, and statistical analyses were conducted to ensure that the groups were comparable. Analysis of Covariance was used to compare treatment and control-group performance on the post-test while controlling for any initial differences in ability.
Teacher and parent feedback regarding ABC Music & Me was also collected through biweekly teacher surveys on curriculum usage, an end-of-year teacher survey, a classroom environment survey, and two parent surveys investigating families’ use of the ABC Music & Me Home Materials.
The results of the study show that students who received ABC Music & Me instruction showed significantly larger gains on the PALS test than did students who did not receive ABC Music & Me instruction. In fact, ABC Music & Me students showed 32% more improvement on the PALS test than did control group students. These results indicate that the ABC Music & Me program successfully boosts preschoolers’ language and literacy skills.
Results from teacher surveys indicate that preschool teachers found the ABC Music & Me curriculum to be effective in teaching a variety of skills, and would strongly recommend it to other preschool teachers, and that parents would recommend the program to other parents.
Students who participated in ABC Music & Me showed significantly greater gains in language and literacy skills than students who did not receive ABC Music & Me instruction.
Teachers who used ABC Music & Me found the program to be effective in many areas. Both teachers and parents would strongly recommend the program to others.
*This study was conducted by SEG Measurement, supported by a grant from Kindermusik International. SEG is an independent research firm, providing research services to educational publishers, technology providers, and government agencies, since 1979.
**About PALS: The PALS-(Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) Pre-K Assessment is a scientifically-based phonological awareness and literacy screening that measures preschoolers’ developing knowledge of important literacy fundamentals and offers guidance to teachers for tailoring instruction to children’s specific needs. The assessment reflects skills that are predictive of future reading success and measures name writing ability, upper-case and lower-case alphabet recognition, letter sound and beginning sound production, print and word awareness, rhyme awareness and nursery rhyme awareness.
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Why teach Kindermusik? There are many benefits of becoming a licensed Kindermusik educator, but here are the top ten favorites.1. Convenient online training and the connections you make with other educators-in-training
2. The community of passionate, caring Kindermusik educators from all around the world who regularly connect and share virtually via the Kindermusik Cafe
3. The Kindermusik curricula which has been carefully researched and created by Kindermusik International, the world’s most trusted name in musical learning
4. Access to one-of-a-kind digital Teacher Guides where you’ll find an incredible amount of resources, helps, support, and ideas with every lesson plan
5. Opportunities for ongoing professional development that keep you motivated, inspired, and growing as a teacher
6. Having a company like Kindermusik International partnering with you
7. The tools, support, and empowerment to do something you LOVE
8. The precious children and their families whose lives you will touch
9. The satisfaction of making a difference in a child’s life, possibly from newborn to 7 years
10. The smiles, the joy, and the hugs that you’ll get each and every week in class
Written by Theresa Case, who has had the privilege of being a licensed Kindermusik educator since 1994 and whose Kindermusik program at Piano Central Studios in Greenville, SC, is proudly among the top 1% of Kindermusik programs worldwide.
One of the fabulous benefits of your enrollment in Kindermusik is Kindermusik@Home – a whole new way to access and enjoy your Home Materials throughout the week. But how can Kindermusik@Home make parenting a little bit easier? Well, you might turn to Kindermusik@Home when you…
And here’s your sneak peek:
Take a TOUR on your PC, your Mac, or your Tablet or Mobile Device
Try a FREE Kindermusik@Home Activity, “Stroll around Town“
Written by Theresa Case, whose Kindermusik program at Piano Central Studios in Greenville, SC, is proudly among the top 1% of Kindermusik programs worldwide.
Garbage day causes lots of excitement in homes with small children. Preschoolers and toddlers can often be found with faces pressed to windows or jumping up and down in delight as they watch those big trucks noisily shift from house to house. And, oh happy day, if the driver actually blows the horn!
When parents think about activities for kids at home, most probably don’t think of “Trash Day” as one filled with educational activities for kids. However, it can be, especially if parents think about the environment! Try these three ways to learn about sustainability for kids.
Recycling activities for kids can be fun for the whole family. Plus, it helps your child to understand how we all impact the world around us.
Nearly eight years ago, every employee-owner at Kindermusik International received an iPod with the engraving: “This changes everything. The potential is endless.” Over the years, we’ve experienced many changes in technology, music and early childhood education, parenting, and their connections to each other.
Smart phones, tablet devices, and eReaders—and iPods—did not permeate the everyday routines and rituals of the average family when we handed out those MP3 players. Now, they do in many cases. A new national study by the Center on Media and Human Development at Northwestern University set out to better understand how mobile devices, including mobile apps for kids, influence and change parenting and childhood in families with children newborn to eight years old. The study is based on an extensive survey of a nationally representative sample of more than 2,300 parents of children from birth to eight years old.
You can read the full report here: Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology by the Center on Media and Human Development at Northwestern University
“It turns out parents use a range of tools to help them as parents, and these include new mobile screen devices like smartphones and tablets,” explained Alexis Lauricella, one of the study’s co-authors in an interview with the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media. “But even more regularly, parents are relying on more traditional tools like toys and activities to help them out.”
With Kindermusik@Home and our mobile apps for kids, parents receive the best of both worlds: hands-on educational activities for families to do together both on and away from digital devices. After all, we understand that in reality after the birth of a child, every family can say: “This changes everything. The potential is endless.” As a child’s first teacher, we want to help provide parents with the tools and activities–both inside and outside the classroom–to use music as the vehicle for learning and unlocking that potential.