Author: Kindermusik

Children get mixed messages when it comes to animals. They’re supposed to love things that are cute and fluffy, and squish things with more than four legs. Kindermusik celebrates animals through song, language learning games, role-play and listening activities, but the fact is that many of us don’t have access to thirty acre backyards teeming with wildlife.

Instead, we go to the zoo (or buy a fish – dogs if we’re lucky). An estimated 98% of Americans have been to the zoo at least once in their lifetime, according to this study by Dunlap and Kellert. When families were asked why they were visiting, the majority said they were interested in “family togetherness” or the fact that going to the zoo was a “fun activity.” Being in the presence of wild animals was not a hot topic. It’s not surprising, then, that a swath of cultural attitude studies have reported “generational wildlife amensia” and increasing “biophilia” among younger generations (Phillips & McCulloch, 2005). In other words – kids are scared of wild animals – domestic animals too. Since when has the llama evoked as much fear as the Loch Ness Monster?
This study by Gail F. Melson found many reasons for animal fear. Of course… parents are the central cause. Whether or not we mean to imbue our children with nature fear, our reactions to things like ants in the house, bluejays on the bird feeder, rats in the subway, a wasp in the car, are, increasingly, the only times many children see and experience wildlife. As your child’s #1 teacher, a peeved reaction to cockroaches in the kitchen translates into a general dislike of nature.
Naturally, our reactions to invasive creatures is unavoidable – not to mention, human behavior that began long before the technological age. What is REALLY important, is that we allow children to experience nature in the following ways:

• in unstructured environments, where kids are allowed to stare, listen, touch, or follow animals as long as they want
• without parents giving scripted explanations of certain species (i.e. “bluejays are bad,” or “snakes bite”) – but letting a child intuit the animal’s own characteristics
• by letting the animals take central focus at the zoo or on a hike, though we may be motivated to do these activities for family togetherness time.

Kick off an animal weekend with dozens of KI songs for the car or bath time – then unplug and go for a silent walk to listen and observe the sights and sounds of early spring.

At Kindermusik, we believe that a parent is a child’s first and most important teacher. We also realize that second language teachers have a unique set of challenges in the classroom.

• Diversity. In one classroom, parents and children may speak several different languages.

• Digital divide. Some parents are comfortable with digital and tablet learning. Some parents are more comfortable with CDs and printed materials. The same is true for the schools you’re preparing these children to attend: some are making the digital transition and some aren’t.

• Seeing double. Often times in ABC English & Me, a young child is learning a second language with their parent. Educators are teaching two people at a time! The child and the child’s parent or loving caregiver.

That’s why Kindermusik@Home materials were created to provide extra learning support for parents. The interactive Web site functions like an online classroom for parents, and features the songs and activities from class. The site also gives parents more information about the second language learning process, in a language they understand — whether it’s print or digital, French or English.

my.kindermusik.com

Print and digital options
Choose your music. When parents visit my.kindermusik.com at home, parents can choose to either burn a CD, or play the .mp3s on a tablet, computer, or mobile device.
Choose your story. Parents and children can share the stories together in a tablet-friendly format, or print out the stories and read together on paper.
Choose print or digital. Activities are available in multiple formats — from print-out paper doll activities, music and movement activities in mp3 activities, to word games. The variety of formats lets a parent decide how little or how much they’d like to expose a young child to tablet-based and mobile learning.

One classroom, five families, five different languages? At home, parents can go to my.kindermusik.com and choose to navigate the site in their preferred language, and learn more about the classroom activities in their own privacy, on their own time.

Families in your classrooms may speak a variety of languages. Some parents may not feel comfortable about stopping the class to ask a question. The Kindermusik@Home materials make it easy for families to translate all the activities, song lyrics, and research-based information to their preferred language.
Short videos model second language learning concepts for parents
Videos can be used as an interactive learning experience for parents to watch, or parents and children to watch together on a tablet.
For example, in this short video from Hello, Teddy!, the narrator employs the “3 E’s” (Excite, Engage, Expand), a commonly used technique for teaching young children new vocabulary, particularly children who are learning a new language.
When parents watch the video, they can hear and see a demonstration of the 3 E’s and incorporate it into the child’s daily dressing routine.
Video activities include a short description of the learning benefit behind the activity, and helps parents better understand the second language learning process. Take a look.

Bear in the Morning excites children by building a tiny element of suspense: Bear is looking around, searching, and wondering where his clothes and toys are. The game engages children by asking them to think and participate (e.g., “Where is his t-shirt?”).
And the game expands your child’s learning by asking him follow-up questions using additional vocabulary (e.g., What color is Bear’s t-shirt?”). You no doubt used this same technique when your child was a baby and learning his native language!

Parents can learn more about the second language learning process

Each featured activity gives parents the research-based approach behind the activities. For example, the ABC English & Me story “Where Is Bear?” features what experts call “accessible text,” in the story. A description of this approach is included alongside the story in the Kindermusik@Home experience.

Where Is Bear? is a powerful example of what language acquisition experts call “accessible text.” Such text is ideal for introducing young children to English, and for reinforcing their learning. Why is this simple story about an adventuresome bear such a good one for learning English? There are several reasons:

Repetitive phrases. The key sentence (or question) of the story is posed to your child over and over again: Where is Bear? Your child will grow accustomed to hearing this prompt, and that helps her predict what’s coming next and to follow the pattern of the story.

High-imagery words. Most of the words in the story are directly associated with a picture on the screen. Or, they refer to things with which your child has probably had some direct experience. Words like bear, horse, farm, and kitchen are all excellent high-imagery words for young children learning English.
High-frequency words. Where Is Bear? includes several high-frequency English words—words that are central to the English language, used all the time, and necessary in forming most spoken or written sentences. Examples are: is, the, on, and his. Hearing these high-frequency words used across many contexts will expedite your child’s learning of English.
A few unique words. Finally, with its simple and predictable pattern, Where Is Bear? contains a limited number of unique words for your child to learn and understand. This frees her up to focus on the meaning of the story.

See the Hello Teddy activity on my.kindermusik.com
Parents can choose how interactive they want to be
If some parents are uncomfortable with the concept of tablet-based learning, the Kindermusik@Home experience provides fun games, songs, and lyrics that the parent can print out from their home computer. Matching games, and paper doll games, like the ones featured in Hello Teddy, all reinforce the learning concepts from class, by asking children to identify pieces of Teddy’s clothing.

Would you like to know more about the research-based approach of ABC English & Me? Click here for more information. We’d love to show you how it works.

As promised, this week we’ll share snapshots of three women who did achieve musical fame in a male-dominated history of famous composers, in honor of Women’s History Month and Music in Our Schools Month. Today, we bring you Dame Ethel Smyth.

Dame Ethel Smyth – Ethel was not without adversity from a young age; when her father began to think that Ethel’s passion for the piano was “too intense,” he prohibited her from taking lessons. Ethel refused to leave her room, attend meals, church, school or social functions until her father allowed her to study composition at Leipzig Conservatory. As a student, Ethel studied alongside Dvořák, Grieg and Tchaikovsky. By 1893, she’d gained some recognition in England with the performance of her Mass in D for chorus and orchestra in 1893. Still, she struggled to get her operas performed. In 1910, Ethel briefly halted her composing, and devoted herself to the Women’s Suffrage Movement where she rallied with Emmeline Pankhurst. In 1911, she wrote and conducted Laggard Dawn and The March of the Women at London’s Albert Hall, endowing the women’s movement with its immortal and prolific composer. Her character was represented in the fiction of battle cry.

Throughout her life, Ethel was publicly regarded as an outspoken suffragist and prolific composer. Her character was represented in the fiction of battle cry. Throughout her life, Ethel was publicly regarded as an outspoken suffragist and prolific composer. She was represented in E. F. Benson’s Dodo books (1893–1921), essays by Virginia Woolf, with whom she became close, and in radio plays by Henry Reed.
Listen to March of the Women here, or Cello Sonata No. 2 .

March is Music in Our Schools Month and Women’s History Month, but when was the last time your child came home from school rattling high praise for his or her favorite female composer? Perhaps we should speak for ourselves, but our repertoire of  “favorite female composers” seems a bit slim when we consider how long our list of favorite male composers is.
As Virginia Woolf wrote, “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”
We think women need those things, sure – but to become musicians, or any other creative profession, women need education.
Since the dawn of the first musical instrument, a reed flute from 67,000 years ago, women are phantoms of musical history. There are exceptions, of course, but from the Middle Ages to the late nineteenth century, women learned basic musicianship chiefly so they could entertain and appear well mannered. Or, like the German abbess, St. Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1176 C.E.), they became nuns, where study was unlimited but public performance was.

At the height of the Romantic Era, women like Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn, though prodigal and deserving, rose to fame primarily due to their brothers (Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn).
Robert Schumann openly admired his older sister, who became one of the most distinguished pianists of the era—one of the first to perform from memory. She was also the breadwinner for the Schumann family. It was her talents, and her perseverance, that supported the family long after her brother’s early death.

Fanny Mendelssohn was also prolific, composing over 460 musical pieces in her lifetime. Still, in one letter, she wrote:

I have been composing a good deal lately, and have called my piano pieces after the names of my favourite haunts, partly because they really came into my mind at these spots, partly because our pleasant excursions were in my mind while I was writing them. They will form a delightful souvenir, a kind of second diary. But do not imagine that I give these names when playing them in society, they are for home use entirely.

And in 1820, Fanny Mendelssohn’s father wrote, “”Music will perhaps become Felix’s profession, while for you (Fanny) it can and must be only an ornament. ”
The spread of women’s suffrage in the early twentieth century stimulated enough social and economic empowerment to spawn the swath of female musicians we know today: Amy Beach, Nadia Boulanger, Cecile Cheminade, Teresa Careño, Charlotte Church, Vivian Fine – to name a few.
We’ll take a look at some of these women of note next week. Stay tuned! And in the meantime, who are some of your favorite female musicians?