In this blog, I want to focus on the Home Activity booklet.  Kindermusik is meant to be a 24/7 kind of program, not just a weekly 45 minutes of musical fun. In order to help you (the parents and caregivers) Kindermusik International provides you with the tools you need to continue the classroom experience at home.  The primary resource is your Home Activity Book.

I see you experienced Kindermusik grown-ups shaking your heads and saying “Oh, no Miss Allison, the CD is the primary resource for at home play”.  But I really mean it- the book is the base for making your child’s 45 minutes of fun into a week-long foray into the world of learning, with music as your guide.

Sharing Time at the end of class is just a teeny tiny glimpse into the Imagine That World. The book gives you tools and ideas for extending the child’s classroom experiences, for adapting the activities to suit your child at home, and ideas to will round out your child’s developmental experience, and enrich their learning.

On the very first page of the Home Activity Book you will find a large graph that has 6 icons of childhood development – physical, cognitive, emotional, language social and emotional.  The icons point out what area the primary area of development particular activity is all about. (We all have these same basic needs, and we spend a majority of our time working toward getting these needs met.)

Each week has an activity that has been designed to guide and extend the overall learning goals of the semester.  You’ll also find that each of the activities has a Foundation Of Learning Statement.   These are the little gems of developmental information I am continually peppering you with during sharing time, but presented in writing for you to absorb in a quiet, and more reasonable atmosphere than the hustle and bustle that is our time together at the end of class.

Here are some of my favorite activities:

Lesson 2: Listen to the drums- add movement to this one and dance your hearts out to The Rainbow Dance, Not Quite KouKou and Ta-Ra-Ra Doomdeeay!

Lesson 3: Make an instrument- a shaker a drum a blitzenblogbumbeeboo…. Do bring this one to your teacher- we want to see it! (Especially if it’s a blitzenblogbumbeeboo)

Lesson 5: Make a boat- sail it in the nearest pond- take a picture and show it to your teacher.  If your boat survives her maiden voyage we’d like to see her, too.

Lesson 9: Make a map of our journey- or a journey you’ve been on.  (Just a note- this activity is focused on a map of a train journey, and I am pretty sure we will still be at sea when week nine comes around.  So don’t fret if your child insists there is not a train in class- we are just not there yet- and boats need maps, too- they just call them charts instead of maps)

Lesson 12: Rhyming nonsense words.  This activity goes with Tippity Tippty Too, the very cute book that we will read in class.  Wait until we’ve read the book in sharing time to do this activity with your child. But don’t wait to do rhyming words- especially those of you with four year olds!  Re-write The Ants Go Marching, or Down By The Bay, and rhyme yourself silly.

Lesson 13: Make an animal mask.  Your teacher wants to see this one, too.  But we won’t use it in class, so you can do it anytime your child is particularly non-human.  You may need to do it more than once… and don’t limit yourself to animals.  My son- the one who was a bat/eagle/velociraptor for years and years- now claims to be an alien….

Lesson 14: Story telling.  This is an incredible opportunity to make language come alive for your child.

I actually like many of the weekly activities in this book, so don’t let it languish on the shelf.  And don’t forget the words and the music for all the songs are in the back, and there are suggestions of things to do there as well.  And mostly- take time to play with your child, to sing and to dance and make fun things.

-posted by Miss Allison, who says that you’ll never forget the wonderful times you have together, or regret the time spent making play meaningful.

So although your play set (see my blog post yesterday), and your literature books don’t seem related – they are.  These components of your At Home Materials provide different ways for your child to engage the world of words.

Books offer a wonderful source for children to hear our language in action. There are lots of things you can do with a book besides reading it: count things, identify objects and colors, find opposites and matches. But the text is the heart and soul of a book and together with the illustrations, they create another reality for your child to visit, rhymes to discover and characters to fall in love with. 

Your Kindermusik Literature Books aren’t related to the toyshop plotline of this class. As Jack and Hans travel around in the “trips” portion of the plotline, they meet storytellers everywhere they go – and reading is an integral part of the Kindermusik classroom experience. (A lot of parents wonder if the books should “match” the curriculum, but it’s really all about good literature and the specific developmental purpose the books serve.)

Story time in class is a social experience. Yes, it’s about the book and the language, but it is also about the jostle in the circle, making sure everyone can see, learning to wait your turn to contribute to the conversation about the book, using words to solve the social difficulties that happen whenever more than one child is on the same physical space.   

The reading you do with your child at home serves an entirely different purpose – you can focus more on the text, illustrations, and content. A book read at home can be twice as long as a book in class. A child will sit in your lap for much longer than in a crowded circle on the floor. The emotional grounding that full body contact provides gives you the opportunity to really delve into a book. 

Here’s a really fun thing to do, even if you don’t have Tippity, Tippity, Too: You are going to read the lines in a slightly different order than written in the book.

Read: Tippity tippity too. Who are you? Tippity, tippity tat. I am a ­­­_____. Your child will see the visual cue on the page and fill in the word “cat”.

Do this for each page. The last page has a whole bunch of animals on it, so all you need to do is repeat this same pattern, adding a “t” in place of the first sound or blend of the word. Like “tamel” for camel, or “tion” for lion.

Now use this same pattern for items in the room (you might need to point at the object if your child needs a hint): Tippity tippity too. Who are you? Tippity, tippity tireplace. I am a ­­­_____.  (fireplace)

Finally, use this for names of people your child knows, even if they aren’t in the room. This is sure to produce lots of giggles! Tippity tippity too. Who are you? Tippity, tippity Tindy. I am ­­­Aunt _____! (Cindy)

-posted by Miss Allison, who encourages you to have fun with words wherever you go!

I love the play set for Toys I Make, Trips I Take.  I know I always caution you in class not to open the play set in class or in the car….all those little pieces just begging to be lost or ripped by little fingers anxious to play with them. 

But, when you get home, I want you to punch out the play set pieces for your child and put them in a container that is easily accessed.  (The zipper pouch they come in is a great place to store the pieces, and the set background can go in their backpack.) The play set is a wonderful way for your child to re-create the story from class, and to create their own story variations.  

Your child’s play set is a doorway into a world of their own making. The play set opens to a universe that has been carefully crafted to encourage language development.

When your child gets the play set out and begins the process of acting out the characters, he is practicing communication skills. He is figuring out how people talk to each other and the play set allows him to do this with pretend characters, and to try out new words and ideas, without fear off mistakes or social errors with “real” people. 

Conversation is a complex process, and requires a great deal of practice.  Children need a safe place to figure out how to put words together to communicate an idea.  Pretend play gives children the necessary space for practicing. So, whether he is playing Super Heroes or house with his friends or playing alone with his Kindermusik play set, he is learning how to master the complexities of our language and the nuances of words. 

Children learn a great deal of what they need to know from conversing with adults, but they need these forays into the imaginary world for rehearsing what they’ve learned.

-posted by Miss Allison, who loves all the funny and clever and imaginative conversations your children have every week in class!

We’ve been playing with tempo recently in Imagine That.  Preschool age children love learning tempo, because no matter how long we spend on slow, they know we will eventually get to fast – and that means running!

Tempo allows us to introduce some of the beautiful Italian terminology that all musicians use.  Largo means slow. Adagio means moderately slow, but largo is the very slowest tempo marking there is. (I do admit, though, that the word adagio is a more beautiful word than largo…) 

When a child moves their body slowly, they are mastering gross motor muscle control.  I love to watch them move in slow motion because they don’t really know how to move slowly. Some of them do a stop motion technique – they move and freeze, then move and freeze over and over again. Some of them inch along; their bodies full of tension and seemingly ready to explode with full-blown motion at any instant. 

Some of them just stop and watch me (We do lots of slow motion activities in acting classes, so I am really good at it!) I know they are watching me so that they can figure out how to do it – and soon they begin to try to stretch out their movements, and extend their limbs to the farthest point away from their bodies. Their facial expressions slow down and delight fills their eyes as they begin to realize that they are suddenly in control of this marvelous thing they call their body. 

Because, let’s face it, when you’re a preschooler, you very often feel as if your body is in charge of you. The need to move is so overwhelming that even when your internal child knows you need to sit, like for circle time, your body is demanding that you move, and mostly you feel powerless to stop it.

Learning to move slowly assists in giving your preschooler the much needed confidence they need to know that they are, indeed, in charge of their body. 

A Simple Way to Practice at Home
Put on some slow classical music and have a slow motion dance. You may need to invent a story (boys are more likely to require a reason to move slowly) to explain WHY you want them to move in slow motion. Maybe their super hero persona has been zapped by a slow motion ray by their arch nemesis, or their fire fighter persona is trying to walk through a vat of maple syrup to save a kitten in a burning tree… any little scenario will do. A prop will make this game more fun and loosens up their inhibitions- and yours too! Scarves and streamers are really good options. For you super hero – a cape is always best.  

Don’t have slow classical music? Go to iTunes and search for LARGO. Most classical composers named their music in descriptive terms, so the tempo setting is often listed in the title. I also searched for LENTO (just a little faster than Largo) and ADAGIO. One word of caution: I would steer away from anything with lyrics because the story in the song may inhibit your child’s motions, and creativity. Instrumental music allows them to create their own story.

-posted by Miss Allison, who sends you off you to search for LARGO. Let today be a cyber shop and dance till you drop day!

We’ve had a lot of fun coming up with lots of creative rainy day play ideas in my Imagine That classes for preschoolers: from drawing, to reading a book, to traveling in a space ship!   The class has been traveling (in our musical imaginations) to Grasshopper Park on a Tricky Trail.  It zig zags, curves, and spirals all the way there.  These three shapes are the basis for all of the letters children will need to write!

So, get out some paper and crayons and see how many colors you can use as you draw zig zags, curves, and spirals.  Tape the paper to the wall. Writing on a vertical surface is easier and less frustrating for young children, as they need to make large motions with their arm and shoulder. Not until about 2^nd grade do children begin to move only their wrists and fingers when writing.

Then, get some blue or green painters tape, and make zig zags, curves, spirals and straight lines all over the floor to make your own Tricky Trail. Run, hop, crawl and tiptoe over your trails while you sing “What Shall We Do”. The version I’ve included here is from ABC, Music & Me, and says “What Shall We Do on a Rainy Day?” The regular lyrics are on your See What I Saw CD.

What Shall We Do! (Click on the link to play the music.)

When you get tired of traveling on your tricky trails, turn them into roads for your cars and build a city with blocks and boxes and anything else you have around the house to build with.

-posted by Miss Beth, who likes zig zags best!

There has recently been a plague of frogs in my classroom. They cannot hop independently, and they are not slimy. They do make noise, but only when you hit them with something! These frogs are lovely, hand painted, wooden instruments called guiros. These manipulative give the children opportunity to work on many different skills and learn some fun new songs.

I’ve enjoyed watching the children with the frogs over the last several weeks, as they learn to say the different frog sounds and choose what each color of frog says. I realized that I used a song that is not on your CD, and then changed the song from its original format to serve my educational goals. (This is an age old tradition in the folk song world called piggy-backing.)

Now that many of you are going to be having a frog guiro or two come live in your house, I wanted to give you the instructions for the song we did in class, plus a couple of other songs you can do with your frog.

The melody for “Gang Goon” is an old girl scout song, and has had many different lyric variations over the years. I know I learned the melody as “Great Big Globs Of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts” as a grade school kid.  My cousin, Britt, and I wrote endless variations of this particular version; all of them full of alliterated nasty things floating on McGilligan’s pond.

We once cleared a campground in New Mexico of a rowdy bunch of RV campers by marching up and down behind their camp signing this lovely little ditty for hours.  They left the next morning.  (And you doubted the power of song to change the world!) We also flooded the roads in the campground by building a fabulous little dam on the river so we could go swimming and spotted Big Foot – but those are other stories….

So here are the words and the instructions for Gang Goon. This is the frog version rather than the alliterated, gross version.  I’ll leave your children to learn that one on their own.  The instructions for what you do with your striker on the frog are above the lyrics. The frog, of course should sit placidly in your palm while you sing and play.  (That’s the benefit of wooden frogs- they don’t hop away!)

Click on the play button to hear the song:

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scrape scrape                                        tap
Gang   goon went the little green frog one day

scrape scrape                                        tap
Gang   goon went the little green frog

Scrape scrape                                        tap
Gang   goon went the little green frog one day

                                  scrape scrape scrape
And they all went ging    gang    goon!

                                   tap         swish your striker
But we all know frogs go Lahdeedahdeedah!

Swish your striker    swish your striker
Lahdeedahdeedah!  Lahdeedahdeedah!

                                   tap          swish your striker
But we all know frogs go Lahdeedahdeedah!

                           scrape   scrape   scrape
They don’t go ging       gang     goon!

The motions with the striker and the frog stay the same as you go on to the other verse.   You simply change what the frog says, like to ribbitt.  The frog that says croak also gets an adjective change to big, slow (a tempo change is nice here, too) and the frog that says SHHHH is a quiet frog. 

You can change the animal in the song and add all kinds of adjectives and sounds, and turn this little song about a frog into a whole lesson on how words work, how we form them in our mouths and how much fun they can be to play with. This is a great way for kids to learn how language works.

Woof Woof went the tiny brown poodle dog….
Meow went the black and white cat
Moo Moo went the Holstein cow
But we all know they all go Lahdeedahdeedah!!!  

-posted by Miss Allison, who is glad the plague in her classroom these past few weeks wasn’t bees – or fleas!