Minds On Music – The Kindermusik Blog - Page 77 of 105 - For three generations, Kindermusik has helped millions of children around the world build a strong foundation for a lifetime of learning.

Kindermusik Olympics – Involving Your Kids

Kindermusik Olympics - Involving Kids in the 2012 Olympics

Has Olympic Fever hit your house? We know many of our Kindermusik families are making the games a family affair. We’ve seen pictures of Opening-Ceremony-themed family dinners (fish and chips, homemade signs for Team USA, Olympic Rings and Gold Medal cookies), glow-in-the-dark baths with red, white, and blue glowsticks, and even know a family who is playing a version of Olympic BINGO that will span from the Opening Ceremony to the Closing Ceremony.

The games provide endless possibilities for conversations with your child. While watching the events, here are some age-specific conversation starters:

Babies and Toddlers

Name the colors of the uniforms and flags.
Talk about the shapes you see (the pool is a rectangle, the ball is a circle).
Describe the events you are watching. Use verbs to label the movements, etc.
Use your best Olympic Commentator voice to narrate a gold-medal winning session of getting dressed, drinking a bottle/eating lunch, or even bath time. Be sure the crowd cheers at the completion of the event!

Preschoolers

Ask which event they’d like to try. Pretend to be an Olympic athlete.
Keep a count of medals won. Let your preschooler add tally marks to keep track of gold, silver, and bronze.
Play a rhyming game with Olympic words (what rhymes with red? White? Blue? Badminton?)
Discuss how to be a good sport.

School-Aged Kids

Talk about goals. Imagine together how hard Olympic athletes must have to work to meet their goals.
Find some of the countries competing in the Olympics on a map. Talk about the similarities and differences between the USA and each country.
Design a team flag, poster, or uniform.
As you watch events where the athletes earn points, talk about greater than/less than, do some simple addition and subtraction, talk about fractions and decimals.

Because we know music makes everything more fun…

Check out this Kindermusik Olympics Playlist:
(To hear a sample of each song and to purchase, click on the song title to visit Play.Kindermusik.com)

What a Day
Catch Me
Yankee Doodle
Keep the Ball a-Rolling
The Keel Row
Burpee, Burpee, Jumping Jack & Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
Swimming, Swimming
Walk and Stop
Follow My Leader to London Town

We know the [Kindermusik and] InJoy Music community is full of creative parents and great ideas. What is your family doing to celebrate the Olympics? Have you been watching the events? Which are your favorites? Will you have a family version of the Olympics? Share with us in the comments!

Contributed by InJoy Music, proudly offering Kindermusik classes in the Lenexa, KS area.

FOL Fridays: The Joy of Music

Music is unique to humans, and as basic as language to human development and existence. It is through music that a child gains insight into herself, into others, and into life itself. Perhaps most importantly, music is part of what enables a child to better develop and sustain her creativity and imagination. Because a day does not pass without hearing or participating in some kind of music, it is to a child’s advantage to understand music as thoroughly as she can.

As a result, she will learn to appreciate, listen to, and partake in music all the rest of her life (adapted from Gordon, 1990).

Ideas for parents:

It can be very simple to surround your child with music – the greater the variety, the better!

Singing simple songs together can get the morning off to a great start.
Child-safe instruments and some recorded music can provide happy times of self-entertainment or together time.
Quiet, soothing music before naps and bedtime establishes a wonderfully reassuring sleep time routine.
A dance around the kitchen can soothe the supper-time “fussies.”
A cuddle and a lullaby at the end of the day adds the sweetest and happiest of memorable moments.

– Contributed by Theresa Case, whose Greenville, SC program, Kindermusik at Piano Central Studios, is proudly among the top 1% of Kindermusik programs worldwide.

Kindermusik “Teacher Feature” :: Bryann Burgess

A very BIG congratulations to Bryann Burgess of Columbia, SC who is officially a licensed Kindermusik Educator. And, quite the inspirational educator at that!

Watch this newscast feature of Bryann

A Minds on Music Quote

"Where words fail, music speaks." ~Hans Christian Andersen

FOL Fridays: Emerging Literacy

Parental Involvement Supports Early Literacy Developement

Children begin the process of learning to read long before they enter formal schooling. Families play an important role in this process. For decades, research has shown that children whose parents read to them become better readers and do better in school. Activities such as telling stories and singing songs may also encourage the acquisition of literacy skills (adapted from Sonnenschein, Brady, and Munsterman, 1996; Moss and Fawcett, 1995; and Glazer, 1989)

Ideas for parents:

Like many aspects of parenting, you know instinctively that reading together has huge benefits for your child.

If you’re looking to add more books to the reading list, get to know your local librarian.Preschool and elementary school teachers can also share their favorite book lists. There are also all kinds of lists online of books to read for kids. If you want to add to your own bookshelf, flea markets, yard sales, and even Goodwill are great places to purchase books very inexpensively.

– Contributed by Theresa Case, whose Greenville, SC program, Kindermusik at Piano Central Studios, is proudly among the top 1% of Kindermusik programs worldwide.

Check out our related ABC Music & Me blog post…and consider recommending to your school!
5 Reasons Parents Should be Reading to their Children

Playing for Change: Peace through Music

The below video is taken from the award-winning documentary: “Playing for Change: Peace through Music.” The documentary has turned into a movement and the movement has created a foundation to change the world and make a positive influence through music and arts education.

The documentary itself focuses on a film crew that traveled the world for 4 years, filming musicians from across the globe and creating song composites of their music. Here is the Playing for Change [PFC] band with their rendition of the Ben E. King classic, “Stand by Me” because, as the video acknowledges,

“This song says…No matter who you are, no matter where you go in your life, at some point you gonna need somebody to stand by you.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM&w=480&h=360[/youtube]

Find out more about the international music and locations featured in the Playing for Change videos by clicking on the map below:

Join the movement to help inspire people from around the world to come together through music. Find out more on their Web site and YouTube channel. You have the Kindermusik satisfaction guarantee that you will not regret subscribing to this channel!

Most importantly, if you are an appreciator of music and arts education and understand the importance of it to children across the globe, please take the time to find out more about the Playing for Change Foundation and its work. Click on the image below to visit the Web site to learn more and donate:

Playing for Change Music Education Foundation

A Minds on Music Quote

“The fact that children make beautiful music is less significant than the fact that music makes children beautiful.”–Cheryl Lavendar

Kindermusik and Your Child: Exercising Your Listening Muscles

Improve Listening Skills with Kindermusik

Like a muscle, your child’s listening skills need constant exercise in order to grow stronger. Kindermusik classes give your child weekly opportunities to “exercise” and develop listening skills as we listen to specific sounds, listen to many various instrumental sounds, listen to directions and musical cues, listen to suggestions from your Kindermusik Educator for ways to participate in class activities, listen to encouragement from you to participate and share ideas, listen to various styles of recorded and live music and singing, and of course listen to ideas from other parents and students!

A good listener is able to focus attention on what he/she hears. Becoming a good listener will help your child:

Learn more quickly and effectively for later academic success
Heed danger signals
Get along better with you and other adults
Make better friends

There are many things you can do to help your child develop listening skills. Your example speaks volumes to your child if you are a good listener, chances are, your child will learn good listening skills from you! If you ask your child “listening” questions, then your child’s neural network will learn to listen. For some great articles that contain tips for helping your child develop listening skills, check out the following links:

Getting Your Toddler to Listen (8 easy steps)

Fun Activities to Promote Listening Skills (by Learning Style)

How Can Parents Model Good Listening Skills?

Compiled by Theresa Case, whose Kindermusik program at Piano Central Studios in Greenville, SC, is proudly among the top 1% of Kindermusik programs worldwide.

4th of July Music for Kids

Happy 4th of July!

It’s a day of celebration and along with fireworks, parades, and BBQs why not have a little more fun by teaching your kids songs for the 4th of July.

4th of July Music for Kids — Source: blog.beliefnet.com

We came across a few songs that can be sung to the tune of many childhood favorites! Thanks to childfun.com for these great suggestions…

Designs In The Sky
(sung to “Frere Jacques”)
Fourth of July, Fourth of July,
It is fun, it is fun.
A picnic in the park,
And then after dark,
Designs in the sky, Fourth of July.

On the Fourth of July…
(sung to “London Bridge”)
It’s our country’s birthday,
Birthday, birthday.
It’s our country’s birthday,
On the Fourth of July!

On Independence Day…
(sung to “Mary Had a Little Lamb”)
Fireworks go snap, snap, snap!
Crack, crack, crack!
Zap, zap, zap!
Fireworks make me clap, clap, clap
On Independence Day!

Way Up In The Sky…
(sung to “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”)
Wave, wave, wave the flag,
Hold it very high.
Watch the colors gently wave,
Way up in the sky.

March, march, march around,
Hold the flag up high.
Wave, wave, wave the flag,
Way up in the sky.

If you know of any 4th of July songs for kids, please share! Our community is always looking for new ideas and fun activities for kids.

Also, check out play.kindermusik.com for more fun kids songs. With our vast selection, you’ll be sure to find a few songs your kids will enjoy!

Kindermusik and Your Child: Making Music Together

When creating music together with others in an ensemble setting, children and adults alike have a better opportunity to experience music with “greater harmonic color, musical depth, variety of sound, and rhythmic complexities” than if they only played alone. Ensemble opportunities like the ones found in Kindermusik class also “stimulate and challenge” self-confidence, imagination, creativity, self-expression, and musical understanding. (Leung 2006)

Before you know it, your child will likely want to participate in a team sport, play in a band or orchestra, or sing in a choir. In class we help introduce you and your child to the opportunity to develop and practice the skills that are required to perform in an ensemble, such as:

strong self-control – stopping on cue

distinguishing between sounds

listening for an appropriate entrance on cue

timing the participation on cue

matching the steady-beat play with an outside sound source, and

playing with others on cue

These skills of timing, coordination, and group participation are also essential characteristics for success in sports. Kindermusik is truly so much MORE than just music!

Making Music Together

Making music together is what music is all about! When children learn to contribute their part to a beautiful whole, they have benefited from one of the most important advantages of group instruction. Music becomes even more exciting when children begin to develop a growing awareness of themselves within the context of the group.

For example, in Kindermusik classes, when an Our Time age child moves up to Imagine That, he/she will be both the leader and the follower in ensemble and will have the opportunity to learn all of the basic skills necessary for ensemble participation in Young Child when they enter Kindergarten. This is a truly amazing musical journey, made possible in the early years by the quality time, and fun, productive, musical play in which you engage your child in and out of class.

Compiled by Theresa Case, whose Kindermusik program at Piano Central Studios in Greenville, SC, is proudly among the top 1% of Kindermusik programs worldwide.