What is your child learning this week? Click your class to read the benefits:
Village (0-18 months): feathers & Do-Si-Do
“Gee, but it’s great to meet a friend!” Kindermusik is a socially interactive and music-filled experience in which we will all get to know each other a little better. The activities will encourage each and every one of us to sing, dance, and play–all the while enriching your baby’s life through music.
Research has shown that early exposure to music may actually aid in verbal skill development, produce the neural pathways that are essential for decoding complex ideas in language, increase multi-sensory perception, and of course, encourage bonding between you and your baby. These are just a few of the reasons that Kindermusik is a valuable experience!
Hello Song: Affective Communication between Adult and Baby can be encouraged through touch, eye contact, vocalization, and listening-all part of the greeting ritual.
Intentional Touch/Massage: Gentle rubbing facilitates the learning of relaxation and can help soothe Baby, aid in digestion, and relieve colic.
Exploration of instruments: Being allowed to explore and experiment within safe limits is of extreme importance to brain development. Those babies who are allowed to explore generally tend to become eager and flexible learners.
Language Development using bird sounds: Babies learn language and the art of conversation from interaction with the adults in their lives. When speaking to your baby, be sure to leave some time for her to respond before continuing. If Baby responds, imitate her speech. Imitation sets the foundation for learning language
Reading the feathers book: Reading to a child aids in language development. As a child hears language spoken to him, he internalizes the sounds which he will use later in his own speech. Younger babies will not understand what the words mean but will hear words, tones, and inflections which will eventually transfer to his own speech. Speaking in many tones and timbres (the distinctive quality of a sound) stimulate an enormous amount of neural growth. Also, reading to a child can foster a lifelong love of reading.
Home Activity #1: The Joy of Speech
The more you expose your baby to language through speech and song, the stronger her language skills will be. Language acquisition is a gradual process which involves many facets of development including: listening, facial interaction, symbolic play, means to end behavior, object permanence, imitation, and vocal chord development. Vocal play can aid in Baby’s language acquisition. Read a new book together this week.
Our Time (1.5-3.5 years): Wiggles & Giggles Fine Motor Movement During the first part of life, gross motor activities dominate the child’s repertoire of movement with the major objective being the mastery of walking. Now the child can focus on activities that encourage the development of fine muscles. Fine motor movements allow the child to increase skills that require finger and hand movements such as putting together a simple puzzle, painting with a paintbrush, turning a page of a book or stringing beads. Active Listening (Bath Sounds) Active listening differs from hearing in that it is an intentional act. While we are surrounded by sounds in our everyday life, we choose whether or not to listen and process the sounds we hear. Active listening activities allow children the opportunity to learn to listen intentionally. Literacy Reading picture books together with adults helps children internalize some skills that are crucial in the development of true literacy. Reading together: Music & Movement Story Time also encourages musical development through tonal, rhythm, and movement play. Folk Songs Ring Around the Rosey has survived for hundreds of years. Although this song had its beginnings in the days of the Great Plague in England, it has evolved into a standard childhood favorite with new meaning and purpose.This is one of the many examples of how the original concept and meaning of a folk song can be altered as it is passed on from one generation to another. Imagine That (3-5 years): See What I Saw Rituals Rituals provide predictable structures in the life of the preschool-aged child and contribute to the child’s emotional development. “This Old Man” The most fundamental property of music is beat. Another word for this is pulse, which reminds us that we each have our very own internal steady beat, our heartbeat. Feeling and moving to steady beat with a child helps him develop a sense of time and learn to organize and coordinate his movements within time. Upper body bilateral motions and alternating bilateral motions are easiest for keeping a steady beat. “On Our Way” (the “Talking Drum”) The development of body awareness in the preschool-aged child goes beyond labeling and moving specific body parts, to focusing and controlling the movement of one’s body. This activity is structured to take body awareness a step further by including aural signals. When a specific signal such as walking, running, jumping or ready stop is played on the hand drum, it allows the child to focus on the signal, to understand the meaning of the signal and then to transfer the meaning to a self-controlled action. “What Shall We Do?” Imitation is the first stage of pretend play. As a child imitates activities that may be common life experiences, such as playing at a park, pretend play starts to emerge. Play becomes more complex as the child re-examines life experiences and adds to or changes the play experience. “Grasshopper Park” Both literacy development and play involve creating, planning, sequencing, shaping, communicating, predicting, synthesizing, participating, producing and evaluating. Both involve representations of the child’s feelings, thoughts, and actions and representation of actual and imaginary worlds. Expression of self is heightened; yet incorporation of other’s perspectives is also encouraged. Literacy development and play can promote understanding and acceptance of others and provide safe boundaries to examine who one is and who one wants to be. Ball Play Preschool-aged children are ready to research, find out more, explore and discover. Asking the children to broaden their understanding and experience of moving a ball (somehow other than bouncing or throwing it) opens up new play possibilities. Through repeated exploration experiences, the children develop the concept that every object has unlimited possibilities to be explored. “Do As I’m Doing” This is a follow the leader activity that contains many components that benefit the development of preschool-aged children. In this one activity the children are encouraged to: “Ha Ha This-A-Way” Children are very aware of the people in their lives. Social behaviors are learned interactions that occur through their experiences with various people. Children come to Kindermusik in different stages of social development, which is as it should be. “Ha Ha This A Way” provides the opportunity for building community by including all the adults, children, and siblings, and by allowing everyone to interact socially within a Kindermusik community. Family Activity #1 As your child plays with the Park Play Set and uses his own words and thoughts to retell the Grasshopper Park Story, you may notice a heightened sense of language. The combination of storytelling and play involve the representation of the child’s feelings, thoughts, and actions of the actual and imaginary world.
