“I have a sound, a mighty fine sound, and it sounds just like this . . .”
Occasionally your Kindermusik teacher will bring out something new, something different, something special. It could be a giant rainstick, or a cymbal, or a buffalo drum, or a gong! There are so many interesting and varied instruments to learn about and play with.
This fun activity always seems to captivate little children. Their eyes widen as they experience something novel, something they’ve never seen or heard or held before! This is one of those WOW moments in class.
Several things are going on during this moment. First, your child is practicing their active listening skills. They are tuning out the chatter of the adults, the movements of the other children, and any other distractions. They laser focus on the new sound, shape, and timbre of the instrument. Timbre is the sound quality or “voice” of the instrument. It what makes a violin sound like a violin and a flute like a flute. They sound nothing alike! Even if they are playing the same notes and rhythms in the same register. We can tell which is which by its “voice”, or timbre.
This exposure to a new timbre is developing your child’s inner musician. As they are exposed to more timbres, your child will develop auditory discrimination. This is the ability to distinguish one sound from a group others, such as recognizing their mother’s voice in a sea of other parents calling out to their children on the playground at the park. Having developed auditory discrimination will help them develop tonal awareness, the ability to match pitch, the ability to play in tune, the ability to harmonize, and more.
Sometimes the new instrument is appropriate and safe for your children to handle, and other times it’s not. If it’s safe to do so, your teacher will walk around the circle and allow each child a turn to play the instrument. They always LOVE this opportunity.
This is when your child is practicing their “wait their turn” skill. Also called inhibitory control, this is the ability to hold back their urges and delay gratification. This is a CRUCIAL skill for humans to learn to protect themselves, prevent injury, get along with others, work in teams, and get along in polite society. Practicing this skill will help prepare them for when they start going to school or out to restaurants, church, concerts, and other public venues.
As your children step up through the Kindermusik levels they will be introduced to more and more interesting instruments. It will spark a love of music within them that will last a lifetime. Giving them this gift of music appreciation will enrich their lives as they attend live concerts, ballets, theatrical productions, and more. Art in all its forms enriches our lives and music is a key part of that. Thank you for letting us be the ones to plant this seed of music appreciation in your child’s life!
We often have short activities in a class that we like to call “Fingerplay.”
Fingerplays are short poems, verses, chants or stories that rhyme. The lyrics correspond to hand movements and pair the words with actions.Fingerplays and action rhymes have been shaped and passed down through generations by the caregivers of history; parents, grandparents and teachers. They have been used to teach counting, colors, rhyming, and other language structures, and also help children sharpen their memory through imitation and repetition. They also encourage children to match words with physical actions. You may remember finger plays like The Itsy-Bitsy Spider or Johnny Whoops!
Fingerplays, footplays and action rhymes are simple, fun, and all children love them – from the smallest of babies to the early elementary aged child. However, did you realise just how many educational benefits they provide?
Fingerplays and action rhymes offer a multisensory approach to learning, engaging multiple senses – visual, auditory, touch and movement. They build language and speech skills, gross and fine motor skills, coordination, body awareness, rhythmic proficiency, social skills and auditory discrimination.
These games offer children learning experiences that help to build solid foundations for learning.
Exploring rhythm and wordplay with fingerplays will introduce your child to the sounds in spoken language. This develops phonemic awareness – the ability to segment and manipulate the sounds – a key component of reading readiness. When children sing, listen and act in response to songs and fingerplays, they increase their vocabulary and develop listening and comprehension skills. Fingerplays help children practice speaking their language. Repeating phrases and words encourages the shaping of vowels and consonants in an enjoyable way.
Try to make them a part of your everyday routine and have fun whist helping your child’s development in so many ways!
Most Kindermusik classes include an Active Listening segment. Your educator sings a cue and asks you to rub your ears and to “Listen, listen, listen, shhh!” The act of physically rubbing the outer ear stimulates the reticular activating system. Big words that basically mean it helps your brain filter out extraneous noises and focus on the relevant auditory stimuli. Rubbing your ears actually focuses your brain and primes the auditory nerve to transmit the appropriate information. Now that we have you and your child’s attention, we play a sound. We make it a mystery, asking them to identify what they hear. This gives them further motivation to focus and pay attention. There are so many fun sounds in the Kindermusik library! Animal sounds. Vehicle sounds. Playground sounds. Ocean sounds. City sounds. Farm sounds. And more! All these different sounds can help build their social skills as they learn to understand the things around them in the environment.
After actively listening and decoding the sound, we discuss it. Just a moment to talk about what it was: “Did you hear the rooster? That was a lion! Wow, that airplane sounded fast!” This is helping build the auditory library of your child’s brain. They need practice decoding all the stimuli that is always coming in, and learn the skill of filtering out background noise.
Finally, we mimic the sound ourselves. Another benefit is when we mimic the sound we are developing their phonemic awareness, a crucial building block of language and verbal communication. This simple and fun activity not only benefits your child developmentally but it also gives them an incredible foundation to be future musicians. As they practice this auditory discrimination they will develop the ability to differentiate between timbres, or “voices” of different instruments. This will help them in singing harmonies, tuning their instrument, and learning to play in an ensemble.
So many benefits from such a little activity! What a cognitive feast for your little one. Happy listening!
We’re resting and resetting after the holiday rush. We hope that you have enjoyed your holiday, whatever and however you celebrate during this season.
This time of year is replete with traditions across many cultures as so many holidays converge during this month. Traditions bind together a community and a culture across the years and give symbolic meaning to that’s culture’s beliefs. That sounds almost like a routine or a ritual, doesn’t it? Family traditions, holiday traditions, religious traditions, and even our studio traditions, all work in the same way. With intention and practice these traditions, or rituals, create connection.
It all comes back to connection. Human beings crave connection to one another, and it is the absence of connection that leads to so many of our society’s problems. Where there is connection, there is safety. And where there is safety, there is the ability to learn, to grow, to resolve conflict, to build relationships, and to build self-worth.
That is the heart of all we do here at Song of the Heart Studios. It is our mission to make your children’s eyes shine and help them flourish. We hope we’ve been successful in adding that value to your family’s life this year. We thank you for letting us be part of your child’s and family’s journey. Thank you for being part of our studio family.
Happy Holidays from Song of the Heart Studios and the JOY Team.
Movement activities in a Kindermusik class may take several forms. There are circle or line dances, guided by the educator. There are interpretive dances where we pretend to be an animal, a vehicle, or something more abstract like the wind. There are partner dances and free dances. Fast and slow dances. High and low dances. Stop and go dances. All these activities have several benefits. Let’s go through each of them.
Social Dances: Circle or line dances guided by the educator promote social bonding. We wave at our friends. We partner with other families. We smile across the circle at each other. This allows the children to notice where they are in relationship to others. Not only does it promote socialization but it also helps develop proprioception, spatial processing, visual processing, and auditory processing. There’s a lot going on when you are listening to directions, moving in real time, watching the other dancers, and trying to follow along. Talk about a challenge for their little brains!
Creative Dances: Here’s when your child is encouraged to think about how a mouse skitters, how a cat creeps, how a bear lumbers. How they can mimic their idea of that motion in their own bodies. Perhaps they are asked to sway like a tree in the wind, or how a train chugs slowly, then faster, then slower again. These activities are helping your child make connections between concrete and abstract concepts, develop their imaginations, engage in pretend play, and practice their balance and coordination.
Free Dance: In a free dance a child is encouraged to create their own movement in concert with the music. This is developing their auditory discrimination as they listen to the musical cues and interpret them physically. They have to figure out how to move fast and slow, stop and go, high and low, big and small, and more. Think about the inhibitory control they are gaining as they listen to contrasting musical themes and coming up with new ways to mimic that theme in their own body!
All of these activities are giving the children practice with gross motor and locomotor movement. They’re also increasing your child’s strength, balance, and coordination. And through this playful activity they are releasing endorphins and getting a shot of “Joy Juice”, that natural hormonal cocktail of serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin. These neurochemicals make them feel loved and safe and joyful.
So when your educator invites you to stand and move with your little one, be sure to throw your inhibitions out the door and fully engage in the activity. You’ll get all these benefits too!
An obvious core element of any Kindermusik class is the Instrument Play. You will always find a delightful variety of simple instruments, usually percussion based. Percussion instruments are ideal for young children because they are so simple to play! They require tapping, shaking, or striking. It is the perfect type of instrument to start learning on because its most fundamental element is steady beat.
Young children do not have the ability to externalize a steady beat yet, so we give them lots of practice by rocking them, bouncing them, patting them, etc. Listening to music, and playing along with a caretaker gives them additional exposure to this crucial skill. Steady beat will help your child as they develop gross motor movements, such as walking, running, and jumping.
These steady beat through instrument play experiences provide what we call a “synchronous social movement”. It has been shown through research that synchronous movement bonds a group of people, signaling to the child that the people with whom they share this experience are part of their tribe and are safe. It is socialization that the baby’s brain inherently understands.
These percussion instruments also give your child fine motor development practice. It takes skill to grasp an instrument, shake an instrument, release an instrument, and more. It also develops their hand-eye coordination, which will in turn help them as they learn to write, use scissors, play ball, etc.
Other benefits of instrument play include learning the pro-social skills of turn taking, observation skills, and the ability to follow. These skills will help them be ready to be in a musical ensemble once they begin instruction on a primary instrument.
Additionally, instrument play is the perfect opportunity for the caregiver to practice their skill of scaffolding. When you scaffold with a child you observe the skill they are already demonstrating, you validate that skill by labeling it and copying it, and then you add upon that skill. When you show your child how to take what they can already do and add to it, taking it to the next level, you are giving them growth opportunities, creative problem solving skills, and chances to utilize their autonomy to come up with new and diverse ways to play with their instrument.
So much is happening developmentally when you and your little one shake those little egg shakers or tap your rhythm sticks. Plus, it’s FUN and JOYFUL and breeds CONNECTION. And with all that joy and connection comes dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin. And who doesn’t need more of that?
First comes Brain Gym. Then comes Hello Song. Then comes the LAP BOUNCE. Every Little Learner’s class (those are our baby and toddler classes) has a lap bounce near the beginning. After our “activity to reduce stress” (Brain Gym) and our “activity to connect” (the Hello song) we have our lap bounce. This is always a sweet, fun, and short activity. It is an opportunity for you to trigger the giggles. If it goes as planned, your children will be begging “again!”
The first element is a rhyme or a song. Don’t make your educator perform a solo! Remember, she is the facilitator and you are your child’s partner. Sing or chant along so that your child can hear their favorite sound in the world: YOUR voice. Nothing makes them feel more loved or safe than you. The next element is steady beat. This is crucial to early childhood development as well as early musical development. Learning to feel a steady beat lays the foundation for your child’s gross motor movements. It helps in smoothing their gait, making it easier for them to walk and run and jump with ease and confidence. It helps them organize and coordinate movements and develop coordination, which will benefit them when they learn to bounce and catch a ball.
It also helps with their pattern recognition, and in developing their auditory discrimination. This foundation will aid them as they learn to speak fluently and eventually read smoothly and with cadence. And of course this lays the groundwork for further musical skills, but in a developmentally appropriate way.
The next element of our lap bounce is, of course, the BOUNCE. This is the fun part. This is where you can play with up and down, side to side, wiggles, rocking, and always a big finish PLOP!
Besides being fun, this motion stimulates your child’s proprioception. Also known as kinesthesia, this is the body’s ability to sense movement, action, and location. Simply put, it is your child’s awareness of where their body is in space, time, and in relationship to other people and objects.
It also develops your child’s vestibular system. This is their sense of balance and coordination. As the bounce sends their brain information about how their body is moving, it learns how to make compensatory movements. The brain then teaches the body how to regain balance, and as they do so they gain in muscle and core strength. Who knew there was THAT much developmental work going on in such a little activity? But don’t forget that it’s also a great CONNECTION activity. All the lap bounces you learn in class are now in your parenting toolbox that you can use when you need to connect and play with your little one. After all, remember that children learn best through PLAY. So don’t forget to have fun with it!
One of our favorite moments in a Kindermusik class is the Hello Song. It’s simple, it’s quick, and it is filled with JOY and CONNECTION.
Our Hello Songs are carefully written and structured to be MORE than just a “hello”.
Of course the Hello Song is part of the opening routine of class. Routines are crucial in signaling to children a transition from one activity or state of being to the next. Our Hello ritual helps our children leave behind what they have been doing before (napping, school, driving, snacking, etc.) and renew their focus on the class, the environment, and all that is to come in the next hour.
If you have been with Kindermusik for several years you will have noticed the Hello Song changes each time your child progresses to a new level. This helps each level of Kindermusik feel distinct and different. What’s interesting to notice is that the complexity of each hello song increases with the developmental age of the students in that level. Simple melodies and lyrics for the babies allow for maximum recognition and cognition. As the child’s brain develops and is capable of more complex auditory mapping, our hello songs keep pace with those changes.
Every hello song reserves time to sing to each and every child individually. We sing to them, using their names, for a variety of reasons. It grabs your child’s attention, it helps them feel seen, validated, and loved. Using all the children’s names allows everyone to get to know one another, develop a sense of social bonding, build trust, and create empathy with their classmates. It helps to develop that sense of a class “family”.
An important aspect of hello songs is the motor movements we use along with it. We clap, tap, swish, roll, rock, tickle, stomp, smile, bounce, wave, and more. All of these actions provide practice for both fine and gross motor development, but they also boost blood flow and oxygen, which primes the brain for the neural feast that follows.
In the upper Kindermusik levels we often allow time for children to choose what motor movement they will use in the hello song. This gives them some autonomy and practice making choices. It also helps the educator emphasize the steady beat, helping them learn to externalize a beat and play together as an ensemble. It’s developing their musical abilities under the cover of a fun ritual.
As you can see, there are a myriad of benefits to our hello songs. It helps your child develop self awareness, integrate language and movement, supports socialization, develops singing skills, and promotes self expression. All wrapped up in one tidy little JOYFUL ritual.
These simple exercises at the beginning of every Kindermusik class blow by quickly and are a delightful routine we employ to kick things off. You might think it’s just for funsies. You might think it’s just a nice way to get children’s attention. But no! While it IS fun and it IS attention grabbing, there is so much MORE that is going on.
These activities are adapted from Brain Gym, an incredible research based program that was developed to help people build better brains. Brain Gym employs carefully designed movement techniques to optimize cognitive functioning. When you hear your educator say “Let’s get our brains and bodies ready for learning!” before they kick into these crossies and double doodles, they mean it. These exercises are structured to prime the brain for focus and learning. Let’s break it down.
Balloon breathing Blowing up those balloons is a motivating way to get children to deepen their breaths. With slower, deeper breaths they receive more oxygen to their brain. Oxygen is crucial for higher brain functioning. It is centering and grounding. It relaxes the central nervous system. It readies the brain and body for movement, increasing energy, focus, and attention span.
Brain Buttons This refers to the soft tissue underneath the clavicles, on either side of the sternum. When you massage these spots it activates the brain to receive an increase of oxygen. This is achieved by stimulation of the carotid artery, sending increased blood supply to the brain. Additionally, it increases flow of electromagnetic energy to the brain.
Increasing this oxygen and energy supply for the brain primes it for learning. It improves the individual’s ability to learn new skills, solve problems, and move with coordination. It also helps relax the neck and shoulders which in turn decreases cortisol, the stress hormone. We know from Conscious Discipline that learning cannot take place unless our brains are in the Executive State. Stress and cortisol knock us out of the Executive State. But this deep breathing and brain button massage helps lower that cortisol, regulates our nervous system, and puts us in a place where learning can happen.
Crossies This fun activity is an example of midline movement. When the limbs of the body cross over the vertical midline it has a variety of benefits. It creates activity across the corpus callosum, integrating both the right and left hemispheres of the brain. This creates new neural pathways so the brain can work more efficiently, communicating between its different parts with greater ease. This makes learning new information and accomplishing tasks easier for the individual.
Additionally it creates core strength, develops coordination, and increases both fine and gross motor skills. A simple activity like this builds foundational skills that will help children as they learn to walk, run, write, tie their shoelaces, and more. Any activity that requires cross-motor skills will be more easily mastered.
Double Doodles A favorite of so many students! This activity has been adapted to suit the abilities of the very young children we see at Song of the Heart, simplifying it somewhat from the rather advanced motor movement developed by the Brain Gym.
As your child moves their extremities in bilateral circles they develop hand-eye coordination and better spatial awareness. It helps integrate the brain stem with the frontal lobes, gives improved peripheral vision, increases body awareness, and coordination.
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As you can see, this quick routine has a myriad of benefits beneath its veneer of fun. It is a FEAST for the brain, giving you and your child the best start for class. Try it at home to start your day. Do it with your child or even just by yourself. These simple activities can help everyone, of any age, refresh their brains, giving both a boost and a reset. This is why we enrich the Kindermusik curriculum with this “smart start”. We hope you love it as much as we do!
You enter the building, take off your shoes, lay down your bag, and enter your Kindermusik classroom.
Your educator greets you with a song and smile and has thoughtfully laid out instruments, books, puzzles, or other manipulative before you even walk in the room.
Your child plays with a prop or instrument. You read them a book. You pass the time while you wait for the rest of your class to arrive, for the door to close, and the fun to begin.
You look at the clock. You notice that your educator hasn’t started the warmup or the Hello Song until 5-7 minutes PAST the official “start time” of your class.
Guess what? Class already HAS started. That time before class “officially” begins is what we call Gathering Time. It is a soft start for you and your child. It is a crucial transition time for your child to prepare to learn.
We are not just passing the time and waiting for the others. We are intentionally creating an environment, a space, and giving the time your child needs to ready themselves. It is a developmentally appropriate way to signal to their brains that learning is about to start.
This has a few benefits. First, it gives anxious or shy children time to adapt to the new environment before being asked to participate. A new room and new faces can be very overwhelming to a child. Some children run in and are ready to rock and roll. Others need time to transition.
Secondly, it provides your children with a routine that signals to them the end of one activity and the beginning of another. Children’s brains take 12 times longer than an adults’ to process information. Part of that brain work is learning they are in a new space and need to adapt to what is newly being expected of them.
Thirdly, it gives your child a chance at autonomy. Soon they are going to be asked to engage in all sorts of group activities and they need a chance to assert some independence, explore at their own pace, and feel confident in the space beforehand. They may need time to explore the classroom and sate their curiosity about the environment before they will be ready to sit down and participate.
Fourth, it brings a sense of calm and readiness for the whole class. It gives everyone a chance to greet their friends and prepare for the connective and unifying activities we’re about to engage in.
If you come running into class a minute or two late you are missing out on some of the developmental benefits of Kindermusik because your child is missing that readiness phase. When you come rushing in they have little time to transition and prepare. They may not be ready to go from napping in a car seat or working hard at school to go straight into musical learning. This can result in a diminished class experience for your child, and potentially even in their exhibiting difficult or distracting behaviors.
We get it. We’re parents too. We know how hard it is get places on time when your children delay, or traffic is bad, or the carpool was late, or your little one needs a snack. We have endless empathy for the chronically late family and you are ALWAYS welcome regardless of whenever you arrive.
But perhaps you can recommit to getting to class right on time or 2-3 minutes early so that your child doesn’t miss out on this crucial transition time. It’s intentional. It’s developmentally necessary. It creates a mood where your child can do their best work and have the best experience.
And it gives YOU the opportunity to calm your nervous system, release whatever stress you’ve been feeling about being in traffic or finding those little shoes, and prepare yourself as well. When you are prepared you can be more fully present, more completely connect, and experience the JOY of a Kindermusik class with your child.
