New Kindermusik class for babies!

At Kindermusik, we understand just how unique and precious the first year can be for both parents and babies. The first year of a baby’s life is filled with, well, lots of firsts: first time holding your little one, first smile, first bath, first time rolling over, first time sleeping six hours straight (yes!).

Our brand-new Kindermusik class offering—Cuddle & Bounce—celebrates your first year together. With age-appropriate activities for newborns, infants and crawlers, this parent-child music and movement class will help you strengthen those early parent-child bonds, understand your baby’s development, and enhance communication with your little one.

What happens in class:

In class, you and your baby will enjoy instrument play, dancing, exploration time, and together time in a loving and safe environment. Plus, as a licensed Kindermusik educator, I’ll share expert tips and parenting resources based on the most recent research in baby development. In addition, you can connect with other families experiencing all the joys (and challenges!) of this first year.

Enrollment includes:

A weekly class and access to Kindermusik@Home, online parenting resources where you can access your music from class, developmental insights, and specific ideas on how to incorporate music and movement activities into your family’s daily routines and rituals.

Come cuddle, bounce, and bop with your baby in Kindermusik’s newest curriculum.  We are hosting a FREE DEMO class for Cuddle & Bounce this Wednesday, Sept. 4th, at 11:30 am at the Agoura Hills Recreation Center (30610 Thousand Oaks Blvd 91391).  You can reserve your spot today by calling 818-597-7361.

Can't make it Wednesday?  That's okay-- you can contact me at  kindermusikwithmary@yahoo.com to arrange for a free preview class.  Schedule and days are available now at www.kindermusikwithmary.net.

Hope to see you soon! 

Research shows that music training can be of immense benefit to language development.  Music listening—such as paying attention to pitch variation and timbre—can increase a child’s ability to distinguish specific sounds within words. The awareness that comes from listening to rhythm in music can increase awareness of the rhythmic structure of language, thus helping children learn to read fluently.

In order to make listening meaningful, we must listen with expectation and purpose. Organizing listening into the following three phases can help:

• Engage. Focus your child’s listening by presenting a puzzle or challenge—making listening interesting.

• Describe. Encourage your child to discuss what he hears, sees, thinks, and knows.

• Demonstrate. Provide opportunities for your child to demonstrate what she hears.

 

You can easily incorporate these listening ideas into your daily routine.  While going about your daily routines, ask your child, “What do you hear?”   Then imitate the sounds vocally, like we do in class.

Try rocking with you child while listening to a favorite song.  Although many people “listen” to music throughout the day, listening is often relegated to being a “background” event.  Setting aside a special time for listening provides moments invaluable to the development of both emotional security and music appreciation.

Here We Go My Little One...

When music is part of the everyday routine, songs can help your child know what to expect and feel more secure. For instance, if you always sing a lullaby at bedtime or naptime, your child will come to see this as a cue for "go to sleep."

Here are some other ways music can help your child make transitions through the day:

•   picking up toys ("toys away, toys away, it's time to put the toys away")

•   brushing teeth ("brushing, brushing, brushing teeth," sung to the tune of "London Bridge Is Falling Down")

•   taking a bath ("Now it's bath time, now it's bath time, yes, it is" sung to the tune of "Are You Sleeping")

•   make up your own words for transitions using one of my favorites from Busy Days! – “Here We Go”  Here we go my little one, in the car seat, in the car seat, riding to the  __________(you fill in the blank)

In addition, you can use music to alter your child's mood — and your own.  While soft, gentle music seems just right for bedtime, louder, bouncier music could be just the boost you both need when it's time to clean up the toys.  Remember how relaxed we all are in class during our rocking segment?  And how much fun did we have dancing to songs like Mama Paquita?  This week, try  to weave some of these into your routine, and let’s share our stories in class next week.

Foundations of Learning from Class:
Animal Sounds: Animal sounds help children explore and expand their speaking and singing vocal ranges. Their simple structures (one or two syllables with simple vowel and consonant combinations) and repeated nature make them fun and easy for children to imitate, and the wide range of sounds (high and short bird sounds, long and low moos, middle-range sheep and duck sounds) allow children to expand their vocal capabilities.

Steady Beat:  Baby loves listening to thesteady beat when played, sung, or chanted.  The draw of the steady beat may be its similarity to the heartbeat that Baby experienced up close for 9 months.

Timbre: The distinctive quality of a sound (voice, instrument, or sound in nature) is called its timber (pronounced “tam-ber”, as in tambourine). There are so many different kinds of sounds: voices, instruments, and animal sounds each have their own timbre. Timbre is the quality that allows you to distinguish the sound of the saxophone from the sound of a trumpet. Children learn how to distinguish sounds and how to produce the subtleties of language and music by experiencing a wide variety of sounds and their small yet important differences.

Vocal Development:  When adults make glissando sounds with their voices, babies hear the range of sounds, including the higher pitches they can most easily imitate.  When babies first begin to develop language, their vocal range is limited to about one-fifth of the full adult range.  If they’re encouraged to play with the vocal gliding sounds themselves, they explore the full range of their voices which helps advance both their singing and speaking voices.

Kindermusik and Your Baby!

Music and Math

Ever wonder what your baby's thinking when she babbles affectionately at the sound of her favorite song? Well, she just might be developing her math skills.

"The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously. Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic." (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, considered by many to be the father of modern calculus)

Aren't you glad that your child's brain is being enriched every week in Kindermusik class? Our activities are specifically designed for your child's cognitive development, and your Home Materials give you the tools you need to continue that development at home. At every stage, we are so much more than just music!

Foundations of Learning from our Busy Days Class:

Rhymes and the Organization of Languages (Corner Grocery Store):  Children must be aware of the rhythmic flow and form of language before they can speak full and organized sentences.  From the time they are infants, they listen to the sounds of speech and begin to produce words as they grow into toddlers.  By exposing children to rhymes, they begin to absorb and understand the organization of language.

Sign Language for Hearing Children (Paper Bag Concerto):  Children begin trying to decipher the mystery of language from the moment they are born. It takes children 12 to 24 months to begin speaking, yet while they are preparing for this huge leap forward, they already have some of the pieces in place. Signing with hearing children takes advantage of their motor abilities, which develop months earlier than the equivalent skills required for speech. Use signing in everyday interactions to open the door to early communication, facilitated speech, increased intimacy, and long-term learning.

Easing Transitions (Here We Go!):  Try to incorporate this song into everyday activities to ease transitions.  “Here we go my little one/Let’s change your diaper…Music can add playfulness to whatever they’re doing.  Helps make a difficult task (like getting into car seat) feel more like a game.

Music Note:  It’s hard to imagine a time when Johann Sebastian Bach’s name was not known to music lovers.  In the years following his death in 1750, there was little public knowledge of his music.  A large portion of his orchestral music was lost, and it is thought that his remaining compositions, including his four orchestral suites, are just a fraction of his work.  The 3^rd orchestral suite or set of popular dances, includes the gavotte, a gracious dance, a bouree, a lively French folk dance, and a gigue, a fast dance that originated in Ireland and England, known as the jig.  The Italiante aria of the third suite is probably the most famous of all the movements and is known as one of Bach’s most magnificent creations.

“We are all explorers – fascinated by the new, intrigued by the mysterious and captivated by the challenge of learning and doing.”

 

In our Kindermusik classes we enjoy lots of exploration with egg shakers:  shaking high, shaking low, rolling, tapping, rubbing and so many other ways thought of by our children!  Toddlers, and especially our preschoolers, always seem to discover yet another way to play the shakers! 

An important aspect of exploration of an instrument with your child is that of “scaffolding.”  Scaffolding is a process of interaction during which the adult gently guides and supports the child’s learning by building on what the child is able to do.  This involves varying the level of the activity depending upon the child’s response.  Because each and every child in our class is unique, we often observe many different things going on during Exploration Time.  Scaffolding is a type of exploration we use in all of our classes, including the babies.

This week put on some music and play along with your child.  Remember, you can use tupperware or empty containers as drums; add beans or rice and make it a shaker.  And of course, pot, pans and wooden spoons (and metal spoons) all make great home instruments.  See what ideas you and your child can come up with this week at home?  Explore!!

Every Child Can Benefit from Kindermusik's Summer Camp for 4 years to 6 year olds at Borchard Center!

Research shows that music improves a child’s memory, cognitive development, learning skills, and ability to express emotion.  Music makes a child a better learner, teaches self-control, improves coordination, enhances creativity, and inspires a lifetime appreciation of music and movement.

Tune active listening skills as children are exposed to a variety of musical genres, sounds, poems, and stories each month. Critical listening activities help “tune” a child’s ear for improved areas in language such as phonemic awareness and pronunciation. 

Invite conversation about cultures and traditions by listening to music and genres from around the world, such as jazz, folk, Latin American music, World music, Bach, and Mozart. Introducing a variety of sounds will provide opportunities to connect the music to other activities throughout the day. 

Pattern recognition improves with exposure to rhythm and repetition of the integrated songs and stories. 

Strengthen memory and increase attention span through new songs, stories, and rhymes with sufficient repetition to help children remember what they’ve learned. 

Boost vocabulary with a variety of poems, songs and stories. 

Music and movement play-alongs and ensemble activities develop hand-eye-coordination, physical coordination, and a sense of rhythm to help carry out activities such as using a pair of scissors. 

Stop-and-go, as well as creative movement and dance activities improve coordination, sequencing, self-control, the ability to follow directions, and plan and guide behavior. 

Abstract and spatial-reasoning skills develop with the introduction of new music vocabulary, notation, and concepts. 

Child-directed learning happens when children share ideas in class and at home with Home Kits. 

  

NEW!  Enroll Now for SUMMER CAMP 

for 4 - 6 year olds at Borchard Community Center!

KINDERMUSIK Adventures Camp-- 4 - 6 yrs.  Drop-off class.  Featuring "Tell Me a Tale"   Through storytelling, children will develop an early awareness of rhythm, movement, singing, and drama.  Each lesson features a new tale from around the world, explored through multi-instrument and multi-cultural elements. All told, it’s an around-the-imagination adventure of the greatest stories from Europe, Malaysia, South Africa, and more.   

Wednesdays  4:00 pm - 4:45 pm
Dates:  7-week session.  6/26 - 8/14.   No class 7/3.   
Cost:  $89.00 plus $35 Materials due first class.
Instructor:  Cynthia Knight for Kindermusik with Miss Mary & Friends.
Enroll Now at www.crpd.org.  Use Class # 5595.3131

Kindermusik's 4-6 year old program supports the national education standards of Institute for Early Educator Research and National Standards for Arts Education.

Register NOW for the new Kindermusik@Home
 
Each Cuddle & Bounce, Sing & Play, Wiggle & Grow, Laugh & Learn and Move & Groove unit's digital home materials page contains an abundance of unit-specific, age-appropriate materials and activities - all tied to the class content. 

The digital home materials are built specifically to make it fun and easy for a parent to connect class-time to home-time, and to enrich both experiences. Everything a parent needs to read the class story, play a game, do a finger play or dance, teach new words or instrument sounds, plan an activity, do a craft, follow a recipe, take a "field trip" (real or imagined), or play pretend . . . it's all in one spot!

 • Music downloads:  All of the songs, rhymes, stories and sounds from class are easy to download and add to your music collection.

• Every unit's literature book is included in e-book format:  with pages you can turn yourself, and a page-by-page audio read-aloud that you can turn on or off. The ebook can be downloaded and printed if you prefer!

• Activity buttons: take you to a variety of different activity types, including dance and movement instructions, fingerplay demonstrations and instructions, together-in-the-kitchen activities, music time, listening games, vocal play activities, video field trips, find-it/count-it style activities, ideas for pretend play, and more.

• The Why It's Good for Your Child area:  fills automatically with information about why any specific activity or activity type is useful, important, or developmentally significant. Addressing the parent directly with up-to-date, research-supported, clear and friendly information, there's a "why it's good" feature for every single activity.

• Download Center:  In addition to the music downloads and e-book, the Download Center also includes Printable Activity Pages and, for the first time, Printable Lyrics Pages for all of the songs in the unit.

A note about Screen Time:  Like most parents, we are ever conscious of keeping the amount of screen time to a minimum. At the same time, we are constantly encouraged by parents to make our content available on computers, tablets, and phones, and to develop content not only for parents but for children to interact with directly. We do our best to balance these forces, providing as much robust and variable content as we can, and giving parents the option of delivering that content to their children in whatever way(s) they choose. 

All units naturally contain only a small percentage of content that occurs primarily on the screen. (This percentage rises slightly as the age level climbs.) In most cases, we have provided an off-screen alternative for those activities. For example: While a video field trip (typically less than 2 minutes long) can't be experienced by a child whose parents limit screen exposure altogether, an online matching game, find-it page, fingerplay, recipe, craft, game, dance, or pretend play activity would be equally viable and enjoyable by a parent/child together at the computer or by a parent/child together away from the computer. We are truly respectful of all parents' choices about screen time, and hope to be providing materials that are robust and flexible enough to delight our diversity of Kindermusik families.