Minds On Music – The Kindermusik Blog - Page 71 of 105 - For three generations, Kindermusik has helped millions of children around the world build a strong foundation for a lifetime of learning.

Our thoughts are with all the families affected by today’s tragedy

Look for the helpers

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.” Mr. Rogers

How to help children grieve

“Let the children take some time to deal with their own internal questions, and their internal grief, and then they’re going to ask these questions, and ask the hard questions … and they need to. And the big one – Why? – you won’t have the answer. As much of an eloquent talker you are as a parent, it’s time to be an eloquent listener.” Bob Rider, Dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences, University of Tennessee, and quoted by Gerald Witt, reporter at the Knoxville News Sentinel

If you can read this …

… thank a music teacher!

The Sweet 16 for Early Literacy Development Fans

College basketball fans no longer can lay claim to the only Sweet 16. Thanks to Harvard University’s Lead for Literacy Initiative, early literacy development teachers and administrators can access 16 one-page memos written specifically for leaders committed to children’s literacy development. This “Sweet 16” for early literacy and language development includes:

The Prevention Plan

Program Design for Impact
Early Identification and Intervention Practices

Literacy and Leadership

What Leaders Need to Know and Do
Literacy Unpacked: What Do We Mean by Literacy Rates?

Literacy Assessment

The Importance of Early Literacy Assessment
Comprehensive Assessment: Towards a More Complete Picture of Literacy
Comprehensive Assessment: Making Sense of Test Type and Purpose

Professional Development

Designing Professional Development for Instructional Change
Implementing Professional Development for Instructional Change

Family Partnerships

Designing Family Partnerships That Make a Difference
Implementing Family Partnerships That Make a Difference

Volunteer Programs

Designing a Volunteer Program Focused on Literacy
Implementing a Volunteer Program Focused on Literacy

Literacy Curricula

The Importance of Using a Literacy Curriculum
Selecting a Comprehensive Literacy Curriculum
Implementing a Comprehensive Literacy Curriculum

Each memo includes common pitfalls that early literacy educators and administrators encounter along with key research-based strategies to address these challenges. You can read the Lead for Literacy memos here. The last three memos are scheduled for release this Friday.

Early literacy development and music

At ABC Music & Me, we continue to implement the latest research on how to best engage young children and families in early literacy development. Our research-based early literacy curriculum uses music to help children build early literacy and language skills. Music can help children hear speech sounds and naturally divide words into sounds. Plus, early language development research indicates that music skills correlate significantly with both phonemic awareness and reading development.

For more information about using ABC Music & Me to boost early literacy and language development, email us at info@abcmusicandme.com.

Congratulations Kindermusik Green Competition Winners!

We are so proud to announce our first ever Kindermusik Green Competition winners for this year’s most outstanding sustainability efforts in the Kindermusik Community! Reaching a decision was ESPECIALLY hard with all of your inspiring entries, so we decided to award 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. We’ve deemed the following three entries as demonstrating the most direct, creative, and enthusiastic responses. We believe each of these entries echoes Kindermusik’s core values and dedication to making the world a better place for children. Congratulations to all!

1^st Place = Dana Van Pattern McKinney:

(Kindermusik Studio, Jonesboro Arkansas)

From Dana:

GOING GREEN AT KINDERMUSIK OF JONESBORO, [ARKANSAS] IS WHAT WE LIKE TO DO! EVEN THE SMALLEST EFFORTS MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE IN KEEPING OUR WORLD CLEANER, HEALTHIER AND MORE LOVELY FOR EVERYONE TO ENJOY!
HERE’S WHAT WE DO!

*RECYCLE ALL CARDBOARD INSERTS FROM KM HOME MATERIAL
*USE DIGITAL HOME MATERIALS FOR 5 OUT OF 24 CLASSES WHICH CUTS DOWN ON SHIPPING, PACKING MATERIALS AND BOXES.

*RECYCLE ALL #1 & #2 PLASTICS FROM STUDIO CLEANING, HAND SANITIZER, AND BLEACH WIPES CONTAINERS.
*RECYCLE ALL ALUMINUM CANS AND CONTAINERS
*RECYCLE NEWSPAPERS AND PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS
*RECYCLE WORN OUT INSTRUMENTS LIKE SANDBLOCKS BY RESURFACING THEM INSTEAD OF THROWING THEM AWAY
*USE POTTERY COFFEE CUPS INSTEAD OF THROW AWAY COFFEE CUPS

GOING GREEN TAKES VERY LITTLE EFFORT BUT MAKES A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE!

Not only does Dana “capitalize” on her Kindermusik class’s efforts (pun intended!), we love how Dana integrates sustainability into the KI curriculum. We like her attention to shifting “5 out of 24” classes to our Kindermusik@Home digital materials, which shows goal-setting initiative and bias towards action. By being specific, action-based, and a true environmental educator, we are proud to award Dana Van Pattern McKinney our first place award of $200 dollars towards her charity of choice, and 100 free Kindermusik songs!

2^nd Place = Merridee Birkbeck-Mckay

(Kindermusik Parent & Family)

From Merridee:

We installed solar power and always turn off every light, fan etc before leaving the house (our 2 year old even reminds Daddy if he forgets to “save power”). We catch rain water in buckets to use to water the flowers over the next few days, made herb, vegetable and flower gardens out of old recycled tires Compost and We also recycle and use lots of recycling for art activities (like our egg carton butterflies and music mobile of old tin cans).

Again, the direct action is awesome! Merridee’s family takes sustainability to the next level by installing solar panels and rain water retention systems. Merridee also proves that composting, recycling, and other eco activities create family togetherness that is already showing a lasting impact on their child. Congratulations and thank you, Merridee! You’re the winner of $100 towards your charity of choice and 50 free Kindermusik songs!

3^rd Place = Denise Sheridan

(Kindermusik Studio, Ireland)

From Denise:

Hi I am a Kindermusik Educator in Ireland and work with 2 other km teachers in my km business. We run km standalone classes and have integrated km ABC into our preschool curriculum. We have been awarded the Early Childhood Irelands 2012 Innovation Award for Environmental Awareness and also An Taisce (Irelands Governing green body) Green Flag for Recycling and Waste Management.

I can email on our winning project submission detailing all of the green work we do with the children and it would be great to have the school children recognised as KM Green Star Stewards as they do so much work in the garden; recycling etc and with great support from all our parents Ulla Beag pre-school and Afterschool have won the award for Innovation in Environmental Awareness for introducing a green programme in their setting. Staff, parents and children all collaborated in recycling a wide variety of materials, some of which benefited their gardening and art activities. This was combined with composting and waste management programmes to reduce their total annual waste by 6,240 litres. Berries, vegetable and herbs, which the children planted and nurtured in the out-door space and by free-range eggs from their own hens, not only enhanced their diet but also promoted environmentally friendly skills for life.

Wow, Denise’s efforts are noteworthy indeed! Already recognized with the Early Childhood Ireland Innovation Award for Environmental Awareness and an award for outstanding waste management practices, she and the students clearly deserves recognition among our community. We will follow up to detail her efforts soon! Awesome work, Denise! You’re our third place winner with $50 to charity and 25 free songs.

Thank you all again for your many entries. We look forward to continuing this contest’s tradition in years to come!

Thank You, KI Green Community!

What better way to celebrate the international Human Rights Day than by reading all of your outstanding entries for the KI Green Competition? We are so, so proud of the unique, creative, and dedicated sustainability efforts you shared with us over the past two months! You’ve installed solar panels, written and played musical recycling raps, upcycled old sandblock instruments, and altruistically nominated teachers and parents from your Kindermusik classes, while doing your own good work. It is a poignant coincidence that Human Rights Day, honoring the United Nation’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, should be the day that we choose our contest winner. Thank you all for aligning with us to protect our world for children. Please check back Wednesday when we will announce the contest winner!

Star Steward Competition Winnings DOUBLED IF We Reach 18K Facebook Fans!

We are prepared to DOUBLE the winnings for the first Kindermusik Green – Star Steward Competition IF our Facebook page reaches 18,000 by day’s end.

If this happens, the winner of our first Kindermusik Green Star Steward competition will be able to donate $200 to their charity of choice – AND receive 100 FREE KINDERMUSIK SONGS!

Kindermusik’s first official Star Steward Competition was designed to illuminate outstanding sustainability efforts in the Kindermusik community! If you, your child, or someone close to you has taken on an active environmental leadership role, tell us for a chance to have your story and project shared on Minds on Music.

If you don’t already like us on Facebook, please do.
Tell your friends & family too!

Word learning and early literacy development

Source: Teachmama.com

In. It. Me. He. Unless you work in the early literacy and language development arena, those four little words are, well, just four little words. However, early childhood teachers recognize them—and 90 plus more—as “Kindergarten High Frequency Words” in conjunction with the common core state standards. According to the Common Core Language Arts, children in Kindergarten will learn to read these words by sight.

Early word recognition and lifelong reading skills

Even people outside the early literacy field recognize that children and adults read differently. Early readers depend on phonemic awareness to carefully sound out each word. Eventually, children learn words by sight and can read without delay. Now early literacy development research indicates that early word acquisition can lead to better reading skills as an adult. By measuring the age at which children learn words, Dr. Tessa Webb wanted to uncover why the reading patterns of children differs from that of adults.

“Children read differently from adults, but as they grow older, they develop the same reading patterns,” Dr. Webb explained in a press release. “When adults read words they learned when they were younger, they recognize them faster and more accurately than those learned later in life.”

In Dr. Webb’s early literacy research, 300 children read aloud both familiar and unfamiliar words. Fifty percent of the words followed spelling to sound rules, whereas the other half did not. Dr. Webb’s research showed that children in the early school years read words differently from adults, but by age 10, children’s reading patterns mirrored that of an adult. Dr. Webb sees this research as an important first step in connecting word learning age to both early literacy success and later reading abilities as adults.

Music, early literacy development, and the Common Core

ABC Music & Me uses music to help children build early literacy and language skills, including vocabulary acquisition. The stories, songs, and music and movement activities introduce students to hundreds of words and their meanings. In this common core curriculum, the picture vocabulary cards support unit-by-unit vocabulary, comprehension, and memory.

For more information about using our standards based curriculum, ABC Music & Me, to boost early literacy and language development, email us at info@abcmusicandme.com.

Bill McKibben’s “Moral Math” of Climate Change

From the Yale Project on Climate Change, one of our favorite environmentalists, Bill McKibben, reports a seasonably heart-warming “Moral Math” graph showing the “six Americas” of national attitudes towards global warming. 33 percent of Americans feel “concerned” by the state of the environment, and would describe their attitude as such:

[They] are also convinced that global warming is a serious problem and support a vigorous national response. Members of this group have signaled their intention to at least engage in consumer action on global warming in the near term, but they are less personally involved in the issue and have taken fewer actions than the Alarmed.

Who are the “alarmed” you ask?” 18 percent of self-identified “alarmed” Americans have made big lifestyle changes in order to appease the “urgent,” “human-caused” threat of global warming. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the “dismissive” actively refute the evidence of climate change and refuse to participate in the shifting culture and consumerism of green living. …Luckily, they only represent 7 percent!

Whether your in the United States or beyond: where do you fall in the graph? Tell us by commenting below.

And don’t forget that FRIDAY, December 7th, is the last day to submit YOUR sustainability efforts to our Facebook page (or comment below) for a chance to win the Kindermusik Green Competition! 50 free songs, $100 to your charity of choice, and a chance to inspire our community by having your efforts posted on Minds on Music!

Where did I read that? A wrap up of bilingual stories online

Expats Since Birth: Bilingual Siblings and Their Language Preferences, Expats Since Birth

You can’t choose whether your child will like Mozart or Madonna – and you can’t choose which language your child will prefer to speak. Each child develops his or her own preference for language at his or her own pace. And in a family of multi-lingual siblings, children will make choices. Parents can choose to support that process.

For example, Uta is a multi-lingual parent of multi-lingual children living in the Netherlands. She recently wrote about an experience with her toddler who refused to speak Italian as a reaction to moving to the Netherlands.

"In my experience, you sometimes have to adapt your language situation within your family to the individual needs of your children," Uta wrote on her blog, Expats Since Birth.

Uta shared some support she’s received on the topic in a book, Bilingual Siblings: Language Use in Families by Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert.

In Defense of the Bilingual Child, On Raising Bilingual Children

If you’re in the process of raising a bilingual child, you might discover a range of reactions from loved ones, educators, even friends. Research continues to support the long-term benefits of a bilingual education for children, showing improved brain functions, problem-solving skills, and language acquisition. Regardless, it’s still a new concept for many people. This blog post helps parents be prepared for some of those surprised reactions.

The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism, Psychology Today

As interest grows in bilingual research studies, new areas of interest are being discovered, such as the Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism. In Psychology Today, psychoanalytics professor Francois Grosjean, Ph.D. talks about a new book on the topic. Grosjean and co-author Professor Ping Li explore how many languages might be involved in the language process of listening or talking; how learning a second language might actually affect behavior; and what happens when a word is literally "lost in translation."

New York Times list of Best Illustrated Children’s Books

The New York Times offers an illustrated slideshow of the Best Illustrated Books. We, of course, liked this one in particular.

INFINITY AND ME
By Kate Hosford.
Illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska.
Carolrhoda Books. $16.95. (Ages 5 to 10)

Are you ready to use music to help children develop early literacy skills? Learn more about a variety of music-based programs available to all Educators. Our online training programs provide you with a virtual classroom filled with peers from around the world. Ask about changing the world, one child at a time. Ask about becoming a Kindermusik Educator.