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.

For instance, once in an Imagine That class a student shouted out that his favorite movie was “Hell Boy”.   I’m not even sure now what we were talking about that triggered this bit of sharing, but his mother was horrified- after we all got done laughing, that is.  (By the way, the only bad thing about the movie is the title.)

But that door swings both ways and occasionally something marvelous walks through.  Today was one of those days.

So we’ve been playing the word game with “There’s a Little Wheel a’ Turning In My Heart”.  (I just wrote a blog about this game, so you can do a search and find out how we play it….) We’d played it twice already in this class and had some pretty fabulous things inside our hearts. 

The typical things are dinosaurs roaring, and balls bouncing, but this class was on an unusual roll.  We had a lovey blanket hiding and a horse making that snorting/blowing sound (Now that was funny – 15 grown-ups singing and then vibrating their lips like a horse…) I asked for one more thing so we could finish up and move on to bouncing.

Imi and Allie

But it was taking a long time so I asked one of my older students, she’s three or so, and comes to class with her little sister. “Allie,” I said, “What’s in your heart? What do you love best?” And she answered in a clear strong voice, (such a sweet little voice), “My sister, Imi, is in my heart”.

There was silence for about 3 seconds, which is a long time, really.  Then every grown up in the room spontaneously said “OHHHHHHHH!” I looked up and several moms had tears glistening in their eyes.  I did. I was suddenly reminded of how much I love my own sister, how much I miss her.  Denver is so far away. 

However, we had a task at hand, and I couldn’t leave Ali hanging, waiting to finish her song, even though every heartstring in the room was stretched taut.  So I asked “Allie, what’s she doing in your heart?” She answered quickly without hestitation.  She already knew what she was going to say.  “Imi is playing with me in my heart.”  Their Mom was crying, and everyone else was sniffling, including me, but we all bravely swung our mallets, rang our bars and sang Ali’s beautiful verse….

Imi’s playing with Allie in her heart, in her heart,
Imi’s playing with Allie in her heart.
In her heart, in her heart,
Imi’s playing with Allie in her heart. 

I’ve been thinking about my sister all day- and what a gift she is in my life.  I’ve choked back tears several times just thinking of how blessed I am to have a sister that is also my dear friend.  Thanks Allie, for reminding me that I should tell her more often how wonderful she is.  I sent her an email earlier today.

-posted by Miss Allison, who says that this is one of those days I’ll never forget. It’s one of the days that makes teaching the very best job that could possibly exist.   Thanks again, Allie. 

I love that a bunch of different words mean the same thing and yet are all slightly different at the same time. Think of all the words for that wet stuff that falls from the sky so regularly around here: rain, precipitation, drizzle, mist, showers, sleet, sprinkle, torrent, cloudburst, deluge.

I love that our language gives us so many ways to communicate our thoughts, dreams, ideas and heart’s desires.

So I was really excited when I sat down to plan my lessons and discovered that it was time to do “There’s a Little Wheel Turning in My Heart” or (in my own words) “There’s an itty bitty teeny weenie circumvolution oscillating in my cardiac organ”.  I love this song because it gives children a chance to play with words.

Did you know that a four year old knows approximately 10,000 words?  A toddler is in the business of accumulating all those words.  They learn one word per hour they are awake.

In order for them to know what to do with all those words they need to hear them work – in books and in conversation, in songs and prayers, rhymes, chants and poems – and they need to practice with them in all the same ways.   “There’s a Diminutive Castor Rotating in my Ticker” encourages playing with the building blocks of language. Nouns and verbs.

First, sing the song a couple of times as written using the original words. But, the real learning in this song occurs in what you do with it.

Next, ask your child what’s in their heart. This is not a rational question, of course, but children are not rational people so it works.  You can also ask what they love, or what their favorite things or people are.  (Be sure you have the video camera ready- they may just say “grandma”)

Then, ask what the item or person is doing. Again, it does not have to be rational.  Grandma could very well be skipping rope in your child’s wacky little heart.  Now you sing the song with their words-

Grandma’s jumping rope in my heart, in my heart
Grandma’s jumping rope in my heart!
In my heart, in my heart,
Grandma’s jumping rope in my heart!

There are other variations for types of words, of course.  A little girl in one of my classes today wanted finger nail polish in her heart. So rather than asking what it was doing in there- (we all know it was sparkling) we asked where it was.  It was on her toes. Naturally.  So now the song goes like this-

There is polish on my toes in my heart in my heart
There is polish on my toes in my heart.
In my heart, in my heart!
There is polish on my toes in my heart!

With an older child you can add some adjectives-

A blue car is racing in my heart, or
A big shark is flying in my heart

Remember, it doesn’t have to make sense; a child’s sense of humor is very primitive, and the incongruous is totally hysterical to them. Flying sharks are the stuff of laugh attacks that last for hours.

I play this game with all my students from Our Time through Young Child and beyond, so get the whole family involved.  And the car is a great place to play this one…

-posted by Miss Allison, who tells you to go for it. Play with your words.

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.

En Roulant Ma Boule in Our Time is a French/Canadian song that the voyageurs and coureurs-de-bois sang to the rhythm as they paddled through the Canadian river system trading furs. Many of the songs they sung were old ballads brought with them from Europe. En Roulant Ma Boule was one such popular tune and was used a dance tune in trading posts throughout Canada.

When it is Carnival time in Panama, we like to sing, dance and play our drums to Al Tambor in Imagine That.  It is a wonderful song about playing the drum of happiness and with all the children singing and dancing along, who wouldn’t want join in?

In Village, Jasmine Flower takes us off to China where a girl enjoys the beauty of a jasmine flower.  It was even chosen as the Beijing Olympic medal ceremony theme.

Here is a version played on ancient metal bells and modern jade chimes:

And in our older classes we are off to Argentina where we learn all about little barnyard animals in My Farm, which with the help of visual aids, we sing in Spanish!  It is a fun song that also teaches about friendship!

So come join us this spring and summer to explore some of these areas and more in our World Travelers Club where we will pack our bags  and get ready to travel! We’ll sharpen reading, memory, counting, and listening skills on an imaginative musical journey to locations both in the United States and around the world.  Every song and activity reflects the culture of the places we’ll visit and expands your child’s musical mind.

-posted by Miss Beth who loves to travel inside and outside the classroom!

For example, the other day I just couldn’t find my purse, so I started sing “Where oh where did I put my purse? Where oh where did I put my purse?”  All of sudden, I remembered that I’d left it in the car, and I happily went out there singing “Found it, found it, here is my purse!”  Luckily, not too many neighbors were home at the time and they all know what I do for a living, so when I break out into song it doesn’t really faze them!

I love hearing that my Our Time classes have already started to enjoy this game at home too!  Even on the first day of class, one mommy came running back into class saying that her child was jingling her keys as they were leaving! 

Singing with your child not only helps build self-confidence, but it is a wonderful way to bond as well.  Just as in story reading, singing directly exposes the singers to patterns of language, including rhythm, speech sounds, syntax and rhyme.

For your older child, try singing a song and allowing your child to fill in the blanks. (“Twinkle, twinkle, little ________”.)  By doing this, you are developing her sense of inner hearing as related to pitch and melody. 

Singing a song in your mind is akin to thinking up a story or making a plan without speaking out loud.  Remembering the sequence adds an additional level of complexity.  All these are vital life skills.

-posted by Miss Beth, who happily sings at any chance she gets…..including the grocery store when looking for the bread!

Every time children and caregivers in Our Time come into the classroom, they are greeted with their peers and a fun activity at Gathering Time. Maybe it’s puzzles, blocks, or builders. When the teacher sings the toys away, the children know that when the sticks come out, it’s time to sing hello. They’ll get to tap, thunk, scrape, click, and roll hello to each other. Then they’ll sing about their day with the bars, bounce on their grown-ups laps, play instruments, dance, and in my classes, we always end with a snuggle.

This is a part of a routine that children learn and look forward to every week. But why do we work so hard in Kindermusik to build this routine?

 In short, optimal learning for a child happens in a classroom where he feels most comfortable. Think back to one of your best educational experiences. It could be a wacky funny teacher you had in high school, or a fun environment at work with people you enjoy being with.  Do you remember how comfortable it felt to be in that place on a regular basis? How much did you learn when you were there? 

For me, it was my course at UW in early childhood social/emotional behavior. Every time I walked into that classroom, I was greeted warmly by my professor, Gail Joseph, and was delighted to see what sort of snacks she brought for us. It was “food for thought”. J I always knew what to expect and that made me feel comfortable and happy to be there. Looking back on that experience, I realized that I retained more from that class than almost any other at UW. And now I use what I learned there in my professional life every day.

In Our Time, children develop this same comfort when they learn a good sense of self-esteem from the familiarity of their environment.  They know that after the sticks are put away, they get out the bars. When the bars come out, the teacher sings to them what will happen in class. The best part is, when we sing about cars, jingle bells, and snuggling, we actually do those activities in class. That may sound like a simple concept, but try and think about all those checklists you’ve made, either mental or on paper, and how good it feels to check those items off when you complete them. Children get to make their checklist when they sing with the bars every day in Our Time.

You may have your own way of building a routine at home with your child. Maybe you both sit down at breakfast and go over what will happen in your day. Maybe you and your child draw a picture together to go over the fun things you did. The more ways you can discuss and recap a routine with your child, the better.  Not only does this bring them immense joy and self-esteem to know that their expectations are being fulfilled, but it helps them to build memory retention.

 Quite often, a toddler will look out the window and see that it’s raining. Then they’ll go outside, feel the rain, and go back in and say “Mommy, I need a coat.” She won’t see the rain and connect that she needs a coat right away until she builds a temporal sense of cause and effect. Routines are one of the best ways to build this skill.

This developing sense of routine is one of the many reasons why Kindermusik is so beneficial for a child’s development. And it’s important to provide for our children a consistent learning environment. In fact, some children are still developing their sense of the classroom routine in the second or third semester.  So every day when you come in with your child and bounce, sing, dance, and play, know that it is just another vital component to your child’s learning.

-posted by Teacher Aaron, who looks forward to his routine everyday!

It is an old saying that children grow too quickly, and it is so true.  As parents we are often so excited to introduce our kids to the wonders of the world.  We want them to see and learn and be amazed at all there is to experience.  I think we sometimes move too fast.  This is not to say the a little push in the right direction to overcome a fear or try a new challenge is bad.  Rather, I believe it is important to allow a child the opportunity to learn all they can before they move on to next level. 

Jacob and Matthew

My littlest man has just turned 3, and for the past two years he has been a Kindermusik Junkie.  As an infant he lounged in my lap, sat up to gum all the toys handed him, and even took his very first independent step in class.  How quickly my little snuggle bug grew older and started squirming away during intentional touch! Eventually snuggling had to be with Mom standing, so he could not get away. Jacob went in his first year from one of the youngest in the Village class, to the oldest or BMC (Big Man on Campus). This was so fun because he now got to hand toys to the babies and bounce with Miss Allison.

Fall came last year and we graduated to Our Time. And do you know what? My BMC was once again the little guy.  He had a new routine to learn for singing and dancing. Big kids answered questions and sat right up front during story. Being the little brother, Jacob was used to watching big kids, and so he followed the lead of others and loved it.

We are now newly three and now we are once again BMC. This semester he is ready to bounce and sing, he know the words and actions, he gives song ideas, gently puts instruments away and he is sitting right up front for story of Pete and PJ.  The fact that he has come full circle in an environment set up for him to succeed is wonderful.  We are teaching him tools for his life. This, as a parent, is the goal, some time they will fly away and do well.  But for now he is mine to kiss and tickle and find frogs on his belly.

-posted by Angie – the mother of boys who are busy from Son up to Son down.

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!

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: Gang-goo

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!