I’m a commentator for BamRadio network, and was prepping for a recent podcast about music funding in the schools. I have a good friend and roommate from college who has been a music teacher for nearly 20 years, as well as the Music Coordinator for the entire school distract. I decided to ask her a question.

Being delightfully as opinionated about music as Pam is, (and in the trenches every day), I knew I would get a great answer. What I didn’t expect was the emotions and memories of my own school music experience that her answer would trigger.

My Question: What is the impact on students when we take music out of schools?

Her answer:
This has been really good for me to reflect at this time of year when work gets pretty challenging and I’m tempted to count the minutes until the last day of school.

In my opinion, the number one impact is that there is a large group of students who lose out on experiencing a sense of belonging and purpose, (especially in middle and high school when that is so important).

For me and so many others I know, music is what gave us some kind of identity – we weren’t jocks or cheerleaders or druggies or theatre people, we didn’t have some ethnic group, or belong to the FFA – we were band or choir geeks and we knew that we belonged to something bigger than ourselves.

The 40 – 100 (or however big your band, orchestra or choir was) other kids were our cronies, our peeps, our brothers and sisters; they had our backs. We got out of our music groups what many kids are looking for when they join gangs – a sense of family and belonging.

I have seen kids who were “social misfits” blossom and become leaders through being successful in music and earning the respect of other students because of their success. I have seen shy, quiet girls become confident and vivacious because of the admiration they receive for their musical talent. I have seen awkward boys become self-assured young men because of their performance experiences. I am so proud of my students – watching them grow from kindergarten through high school.

Again, at least for me, the other great impact is applying hard work to achieve excellence, to work toward perfection – not just being good at something – being better than we ever dreamed we could be, and having that moment when it all comes together and touches your soul.

I have always been a good student – A’s in school, high honor roll, cum laude, etc., but music is the only academic area where moments of high achievement have touched my soul. No term paper or science lab ever did that. As a working adult, I apply those high standards to everything I do.

When we take music away, we take those moments away.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, whose realizes that her happiest memories of school center around music, whether it be singing “Don Gato” in third grade, being picked for “the solo” in 6^th grade band (and totally flubbing it at the concert, but my band mates cheered me on anyway), or playing in a group of 400 other musicians in all-state band and feeling part of something magical.

Did you know there was a link between your child’s Kindermusik experience and his potential ability to read a map? It’s true….Though spatial awareness is a skill that usually comes naturally for most children, it is certainly a skill that parents can do much to promote. Using Kindermusik to encourage the development of spatial awareness is a natural choice.

Spatial awareness can be defined as: an awareness of the body in space, and the child’s relationship to the objects in the space. This can include spatial orientation, which is the skill that allows them to understand and comply with simple requests such as: “line up at the door” or “sit in a circle.”

Doing the Hokey Pokey in Kenya!

Spatial awareness is also linguistic. The understanding of the positional words people use to define themselves in space is essential to spatial awareness. “I am underneath the bridge….I am behind the tree.” You get the picture.

Next time you are in your Kindermusik class, check out the movement chart on the wall and notice how many of the words are directional or relational. Hoop play is one of the many activities in Kindermusik designed to promote spatial awareness…I am in the hoop, outside the hoop, beside the hoop, in front of the hoop. Another well-loved favorite is the “Hokey-Pokey” …“you put your right arm in, you take your right arm out, you put your right arm in, and you shake it all about…”

Our Time’s “Zoom-E-Oh” which demonstrates up/down, high/low, in/out, away/together, etc. Songs like these and activities like hoop play are allowing your child to learn to organize the available space in relation to themselves and in relationship to objects and other individuals.

In addition to spatial awareness, they are learning things like body parts, rhythm patterns, and a sense of direction. Spatial concepts learned through movement and exploration simultaneously develop muscle strength, coordination, self-confidence, and thinking skills. Spatial awareness helps you distinguish between words on this page and see the letters in correct relation to each other.

Which brings us to the initial question: what is the link between your child’s Kindermusik experience and his ability to read a map? Studies show that the development of spatial orientation leads to increased understanding of location and direction and even eventually the ability to understand and read a map – the point being that spatial awareness or a lack thereof has a direct impact on everyday skills that make a practical difference in our ability to navigate through life.

This same ability applies to reading and writing music on the staff, swinging a golf club, lobbing a tennis ball over the net, heading a soccer ball into the goal, or sending a baseball over the fence.

So…what if the Hokey-Pokey is what it’s all about? Well….in some respects, it is!

­-posted by Studio3Music, with thanks to contributor Theresa Case, our friend and Kindermusik Educator from Greenville, SC.

I love “All Fall Down” from Away We Go ”. But we’ll do it in just about every class level. From a learning perspective, it works for all age groups.  And I love it because it is just plain fun.

On the off chance that you’ve never experienced the joy of playing “All Fall Down”, let me fill in the blanks a bit. There are rules that everyone follows, so that makes it a game. Everyone gets a streamer.  Parents, too. And there is music (naturally).

The music has three cues, and each cue requires a specific reaction from the players (these are the rules):

         To start, everyone lies on the floor.
         When you hear the crank, you get up.
         When you hear the music, you dance.
         When you hear the descending scale, you fall down.
         Repeat until the music is over.

Then repeat again and again and again, until everyone is tired.  You’ll be physically tired before your child is tired of the game. 

Why? Because they love this game.  Here are some of the reasons I think they love it so much and will play it over and over again.

Reason One: The need to move is so powerful in the early years that any game or activity that encourages movement is going to be a hit.  This particular game inspires total abandonment to movement- it is all about movement. Fast movement, slow movement, moving just your arms as the streamers fly all around you, smooth movements and jerky movements- it just doesn’t matter so long as you are moving. No one feels like this game is too hard. No one feels like this game is too easy. So the success rate is 100%.   

Reason Two: This game allows young children to address one of their bigger fears as new movers and walkers – falling down. Have you ever seen a child take a tumble, pop right back up, obviously unharmed, burst into tears and dash into mom’s or dad’s arms?  They do that, not necessarily because they got hurt, but because the fall scared them.

A game where falling down is the ultimate goal is a great way to alleviate this fear.  The children are in control of the falling; they learn that they can get back up again, that their brain is in control of their body throughout its range of motion. Learning to fall down helps to put the child in control of their body.

Reason Three:  The game has a surprising intellectual element.  There are no language cues that signal what to do. The child simply learns to recognize the sound of the descending scale pattern and understand that means it’s time to fall down. 

Initially, they learn by watching the grownups.  I am quite sure they learn the musical cue, because after three weeks of playing “All Fall Down” in class the children are now anticipating it; they know when it’s coming and get ready.  A pre-schooler in “Imagine That!” dashed by me today and said “It’s coming Miss Allison!!!”  and she was dead on.  (She was thrilled to be right- such success!)  And they know how long they need to lie on the floor (it’s different each time) and they don’t move until they hear that crank. Which is connected to…

Reason Four:  This game teaches self-control – how to wait, how to follow instructions, how to share the space with a dozen other moving bodies and not crash into them. It teaches deliberate listening and deliberate action.  It is a game that is full of purpose. 

It is so full of purpose that it’s easy to forget the original intent of the activity is to teach the musical concepts of high and low.  And it does that beautifully as well.

-posted by Miss Allison, who wants you to head into the living room and clear the furniture and enjoy a few moments of unconstrained, falling down joy. 

For those of you who don’t own “All Fall Down” in your music library, you can download it right here.

It has been said that on average we remember

20% of what we read
30% of what we hear
40% of what we see
50% of what we say
60% of what we do
90% of what we see, hear, say and do
(this now becomes Active Learning)

(Source – Accelerated Learning for the 21^st Century by Colin Rose and Malcolm J. Nicholl)

The "birds eye" above the note is a fermata.

Integrated “active” learning is what you’ll experience in every one of our Kindermusik classrooms. For instance, take a fermata. A what you say? (Look left for a picture.)  When you come across a fermata in music, it means to hold the note or the rest, usually as long as the conductor tells you to.

Now, you might think a 15 month old has no use for a fermata. And you’d be right. However, a 15 month old does need to learn what the fermata can teach him. To pause, hold and wait until he’s told to start again. What parent doesn’t want that?

To teach the concept of a fermata, we get out the parachute and sing a song. One of the lines is “Hop up, my baby, three in a row”.  At the word “up”, we lift the parachute up and hold it. The teacher then tells the class when to bring the parachute down by resuming to sing the rest of the phrase “my baby…” The pause (hold) in between “up” and “my baby” is the fermata.

The children learn and remember the fermata concept (pause, hold and wait until told to go) by integrated active learning:

Hearing the parachute move up and down
Seeing the parachute move and stop
Holding onto the handles and moving the parachute up and down
Feeling the wind as the parachute moves up and down
Hearing the music stop (or stopping singing as they get old enough to sing)

As children get a bit older, we play musical games like riding stick ponies, and stopping our bodies when we hear the music pause, and then waiting until the music instructs us to go again.

Hear, See, Say, Do. The perfect recipe for active learning.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who loves that a paused “up” parachute even looks like a fermata!

I know all you Our Time parents are wondering when we are going to be done with the “Arkansas Traveler”.  I am pleased to tell you that we will be done in week 15 of the curriculum.  Now I can hear you saying “WAIT! Isn’t the 15^th week the LAST week of the semester?” Yes.  It’s true – we are going to do the “Arkansas Traveler” every week of the semester.

But there’s a good reason. I promise.  I wouldn’t make you do it if there wasn’t a really good reason.

Children need several things for learning to happen. First they must be in an emotionally safe place with caring adults to guide them.  They need movement, and if the movement can be varied that’s even better.  They need repetition and the activity needs to be fun, and joyful. Circle dancing meets all this criteria.

When a child is moving, their brain is actively creating neural pathways.  So for the 3 minutes and 8 seconds that we are doing the Arkansas Traveler, your child’s brain is in overdrive.  However, those new neural pathways are temporary; they will disappear without repetition.  So in order for those new neural pathways to last a lifetime we have to repeat the dance over and over again.  That’s why a child’s battle cry is “AGAIN, AGAIN!!”  They know that they need stimulating activities to be repeated.

The physical movements in the Arkansas Traveler are varied.  The circle to the left/circle to the right sections are large group gross motor activities.   Some of the children walk, some of the older children skip, and occasional hopping occurs.  Some of the children hold hands, which change how the children balance.  The change in direction is fast, forcing the children to reverse their body and their brain very quickly.

The toe tap is an isolated movement requiring the child to use specific muscles in a new way.  Typically the muscles used to tap the toe and swing the foot side to side are used in conjunction with the other muscles in the legs for walking.  So to tap and swing, we use just some of the muscles and in a different way.

In and out of the circle creates that safe emotional environment that is so necessary for learning.  And there is walking backwards in this section.  There are not many opportunities to walk backwards in our day-to-day lives, and it requires great balance and reversal of the typical muscle patterns used for walking.

And then we come to everybody’s favorite part- swing your partner all around.  Spinning is great for your brain- and for a toddler who really can’t spin that well on their own, having you do it for them is the best way to accomplish this task… and it’s lovely to be held and twirled around by someone who loves you…

But variety is the spice of life- we can’t do the same things all the time regardless of how loud the toddlers call “AGAIN AGAIN”.   We all know that we need variety.  That’s how we’ll build more pathways- right?   So how do we balance variety that with the need for repetition?

There are a couple of ways we accomplish this in an Our Time classroom.  There are several activities in each semester that we do over and over again. These activities remain the same each week while the other activities change around them.

And sometimes we change a movement pattern in a big dance for just a little while.  So we might swap out kicking in the Keel Row for jumping, or spinning round and round to swinging up and down in The Arkansas Traveler.   This variation in the movement allows up to continue building the neural pathways we’ve already established and start building some new ones while were at it.

And yes, you are right again. Now we need to repeat the variation.  So you can plan on swinging up and down for a little while. We’ll go back to spinning ‘round and ‘round because spinning really is like a full meal deal for the brain- but more on that later!

-posted by Miss Allison, who will have some very well-worn neural pathways after dancing The Arkansas Traveler over 135 times this semester!

So you’re pregnant. And it’s your 20 week appointment. You know, the ultrasound one where you finally get to find out if you are having a boy or girl. What you cannot see on the monitor is the major effect the gender of your baby is having on his or her brain.

It’s a boy!
We all know that there are two halves of the brain. But how do the two sides “talk” to each other? Through the corpus callosum, the pipeline of 300 million fibers that connects the right and left sides of your brain.

About halfway through your pregnancy, your baby boy’s brain experiences a testosterone wash, which causes portions of the corpus callosum to shrink. The concentration of testosterone produced by your little one’s testicles is comparable to that of young adult men!

By the time you are 26 weeks along, this testosterone binds to the brain tissue and has permanently transformed it. So, if you did another ultrasound (with a tech who knew what to look for), you could actually distinguish a female brain from a male brain!

It’s a girl!
Interestingly enough, the opposite happens if you are having a girl. When the corpus collosum is exposed to estrogen, the estrogen causes more connections to grow. Her corpus collosum is made up entirely of “white matter”. White matter coordinates how well brain regions work together. (As a side note, female brains have 9.5 times as much white matter as male brains do. ) Is this why women are generally better at multi-tasking?

It’s a musician!
The front portion of the corpus callosum has been reported to be significantly larger in musicians than non-musicians. (Unabashed promoting of Kindermusik class using scientific reasoning…)

So, having two boys myself (and thinking their shrunken corpus collosums could use all the help they could get), I was tickled to learn “baby brain exercises” in my Kindermusik Village that activate and integrate both sides of the brain. These fun and simple exercises cross the midline of the body, which helps develop the corpus colossum. This strengthens communication between the two hemispheres.

Congrats! Your baby has arrived!
With your baby in a comfortable position, on a blanket or your lap, chant or sing your favorite nursery rhyme several times, doing the motions with each line. Repeat four times, changing the motion each time.

Hickory, dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down,
Hickory dickory dock.

First time: Raise his arms together, up and down.
Second time: Raise her legs together, up and down.
Third time: touch his left hand to his right foot.
Fourth time: touch her right hand to her left foot.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who wonders if these exercises would work on grown-up boys…