Minds On Music – The Kindermusik Blog

You can help your little one develop the awareness needed for active listening when you stop and listen to the nuances of sound. Developing good listening skills is vital to helping her learn to follow directions, read, or play an instrument.

Here are some Kindermusik tips for you:

• For your baby: Sit comfortably and hold your baby on your knees so that you’re facing each other. Imitate her facial expressions and sounds. Allow long pauses, letting her notice that you’re really listening.
• For your toddler: When you hear an interesting and easily repeatable sound, such as a doorbell, a knock, or footsteps, ask your toddler, “What’s that sound?” Imitate the sound yourself and then ask if she can make the sound too.
• For your preschooler or big kid: Play “I Hear” (instead of “I Spy”). Start by saying, “I hear with my little ear . . . something in the kitchen.” Your child can ask questions about the sound or try to identify it. Then switch roles. Here's another one — try playing the “If you can hear me” game. Say, “If you can hear me, hop on one foot.” Let your voice get softer and softer, while the actions get sillier and sillier. The crazier the actions, the more fun you'll have.

With preschoolers and early elementary, blowing develops their diaphragms and builds muscle control necessary for singing and wind instrument playing.

Blowing also helps children become aware of the fact that they can use breath to make a variety of sounds, move things, blow out candles, or create a cooling breeze.

Blowing for all ages
· Blow kisses – even babies can do this!
· Blow through a straw into your milk, juice or water.
· Blow bubbles.
· Play a slide whistle or a harmonica (like the one in this semester’s Our Time).
· Put a dab of watercolor or thinned tempura paint on a piece of paper. Blow on it with a straw and make beautiful designs.

For older children
· Put a fluffy craft feather partially into the end of a drinking straw. Blow on the other end and see how far you can make the feather fly!
· Place a ping pong ball on the table. With players on each side of the table, try to blow it off your opponent’s side with a drinking straw.
· Whistle.
· Play a duck call or kazoo.
-posted by Miss Analiisa, who wants you to breathe in through your nose, and blow out through your mouth three times right now. Don’t you feel calmer?

Here's one of those emails we got with a little story that made us smile. Kindermusik parent Shaunna sent this story about her daughter Jessie (pictured, right) to their eduator, Linda Courchesne of Kids Music & Movement in Ontario, Canada. It really captures a what it's all about — how Kindermusik classes bring learning into the home.

"I just have to tell you what Jessie did tonight … I always put on the Do-Si-Do CD after her bath (she now runs to the playroom and waits by the CD player for it!), and we did the Hello Song and then just started playing with her toys, as usual. BUT — when it got to the Boom-Pa-Pa song, she immediately dropped her toys and stood up and started dancing and saying, "Ba Pa Pa Pa" and when it got to the "swoopy and swervy" verse, still standing, she bent over in half, dropped her arms all "noodle like" and swooped and swerved her whole body. Then she stood up and clapped for herself! SO cute! I just had to share my happy little at-home Kindermusik moment with someone who would REALLY appreciate it! … Shaunna"

Kindermusik tips…

• Your Baby: At two months, he coos and babbles. In his first year, he’ll begin making vowel sounds (oohs and aahs), and then move to new sounds and vowel-consonant combinations. Your baby is also learning the art of conversation. Bring your face close to his, and talk to him. Ask him a question and let him respond. He is learning that conversation is a two-way street.

• Your Toddler: In a verbal growth spurt, your toddler’s vocabulary expands from about 50 to 200 words. When your toddler displays emotion, give him the language to identify it. “You’re happy!” or “I can see that you’re sad.” You’ll enhance his emotional intelligence as well as his vocabulary.

So, what does make a great teacher, at least those whose students perform best among the over 7,000 TFA teachers? “Superstar teachers had four other tendencies in common: they avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully — for the next day or the year ahead — by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls.”

Funny thing, this sounds exactly like what we train our licensed Kindermusik teachers on during their Kindermusik Fundamentals course and as they grow in various Kindermusik Professional Development courses. Moreover, it is what we observe among our very best licensed educators. I’m proud to say Kindermusik licensed educators are provided extensive opportunities for in-service training and that their relicensure requires them to take full advantage.

In Kindermusik class, we tell parents that simply having their child in an interactive musical environment has huge impact. This impact usually goes well beyond what we are seeing in class. (For example, a child may initially be shy about singing in class. At home, however, she will sing the class songs all the time! We know she's learning and abosorbing).

Recent research backs up what we have known and seen for years. According to researchers at the University of Amsterdam (2008), there is evidence that some musical capabilities are developed just by being exposed to music, especially music of the listener’s preferred genre. And we can tell you that Kindermusik kids LOVE their Kindermusik music. (And most parents are closet fans too!)

When it comes to music, listening equals learning. Most parents instinctively recognize the power of music and want to do all they can to foster their child’s musical interests and development. One of the easiest things you can do is surround your child with an active musical environment. Kindermusik International’s experience over the past 30 years has shown that for young children –- baby, toddler, preschooler, or big kid — there’s no better way to listen and learn than with us!

Check out Kindermusik Play, our new e-music site to preview and download some of our music. Have a listen with your kids. They'll be learning!

To check out the research, click here. From ScienceDaily (Aug. 13, 2008): Researchers at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) have demonstrated how much the brain can learn simply through active exposure to many different kinds of music. "More and more labs are showing that people have the sensitivity for skills that we thought were only expert skills," Henkjan Honing (UvA) explains.

"I just found another HUGE benefit to the kids knowing all about steady beat. We recently began learning about syllables in words. I thought it would be kind of a tricky thing to teach, but I started by calling the syllables 'beats' and the kids didn’t have any trouble catching on. Once they were able to count the beats in a word (which didn’t take long at all), then I transitioned to calling the beats syllables. It was effortless! When one is homeschooling, there are few things that one can call effortless –- so thank you for setting up that foundation in my children!!!"
-Mother of Trudy (age 7), Elias (age 5), and Clara (18 months)

To learn more, check out our Benefits of Kindermusik page.

For your crawler or lap baby, put on a piece of music you love. Hold your baby in your arms, and dance in curves, circles, zig zags, straight lines, and any direction you can think of. Be sure to change the direction you are holding your little one (frontwards, backwards, sideways or even upside down!) This helps your baby have a different visual perspective on the world.

For your walker, pull the car out of your garage. Take some sidewalk chalk and draw all sorts of different kinds of lines on the floor. Play follow the leader and have fun walking, running, jumping and tiptoeing on the lines. Be sure to change leaders, and let your child lead when he or she has the hang of the game. You’ll be surprised at how quickly your child will catch on.

Have your kid grab a ball and try these:

• Kick the ball — it requires him to shift weight to one foot for support
• Throw the ball — it calls for balance, coordination, and the use of two hands
• Jump up and reach for a ball — it promotes stretching, strengthening, and conditioning
• Sit on top of a big rubber ball and bouncing gently — not only does it elicit giggles, it strengthens core muscles and promotes balance

Need a ball? The Gertie ball is available in our online store, found here.

Isn’t it amazing how fast these children in Kindergarten and First Grade are learning, gaining new skills and loving all they can do on their own? It’s easy (and frequently, a relief) to let them do just that – proceed on their own – especially with a younger sibling at hand.

I frequently wore the cloak of guilt that surrounds the issue of quality time v. quantity time. I remember stretching the definition of “quality” to include inviting my son to sit at the kitchen table and play a song on his glockenspiel (a simple barred instrument with the musical notes of a scale) while I cooked dinner, emptied the dish-washer, cleaned out the moldy containers in the refrigerator and made tomorrow’s lunches.

The best gift you can give anyone is presence – unencumbered attention and participation, connecting with what they are saying, doing, learning, enjoying. When a young child senses that something is important to you, important enough for you to invest your authentic and full attention, it gains in value, energy, and enjoyment.

“Let’s play our recorders!” (Because I purchased one, too, and love that he is teaching me what he is learning.)

“Play one note of a song and let me guess which one it is.” (Turn any new skill into a game that’s both fun and challenging. Keep requesting the addition of another note until you can you guess the song – or until he’s played the whole song!)

“Time for Bernie’s (our golden retriever) concert.” (Schedule a regular time everyday to practice a new skill. The rewards of mastery alongside the life lesson of the importance of practice will pay off in all aspects of life – in sports, in spelling, in music, in everything!)