If you’ve ever come to a Kindermusik class, you’ll notice that we will have a steady beat activity every week, in every age group. It might involve shakers, streamers, or drums. Or singing, chanting or lap bouncing. Or maybe moving our bodies or dancing. Or even stomping, gliding or tiptoeing.

A baby hears a constant steady beat (mom’s heartbeat!) by 22 weeks after conception. And every infant is born with the ability to keep a steady beat – his own internal beat.  Sometimes in a Village class, a piece of music will match a baby’s own beat, and you’ll see him or her banging away in perfect rhythm!

Steady beat for babies:
Exposure to steady beat (hearing it, feeling it, “seeing it”, being moved to it) is important for a baby’s developing sense of steady beat. An internalized awareness of beat will help him to coordinate his movements.

A baby who is beginning to internalize a steady beat will show it through rocking, nodding, patting and kicking. Later she’ll be able to demonstrate steady beat through clapping and playing a drum to a steady beat.  Steady beat will be a key factor in his learning to walk.

Steady beat for toddlers:
Children 18 months through 3 years old are learning to control and coordinate their body’s movements. The ability to keep a steady beat helps in walking with a smooth gait, leading to running and jumping with confidence.

It is at this age that feeling and moving to a steady beat develops the ability to organize and coordinate movements with proper timing – like bouncing a ball and catching it.

Steady beat for preschoolers:
Steady beat competency is central to the development of movement organization, such a marching in time, dribbling and shooting a basketball, using scissors and writing smoothly. Being able to move their entire body to a steady beat leads to the ability to speak and read with a smooth cadence, thereby enhancing communication abilities.

Interesting steady beat facts:
A sample study was done of first and second string NFL players.  100% of the first string players could maintain a steady beat without any external stimulus for 45 seconds.  Only 50% of the second string players could accomplish the same.

Tests show that children with steady beat internalization are better readers and more successful in math. Children with better abilities in steady beat are reported to be better behaved in class and have less aggressive physical contact with other students.

It is well-known that a stutter does not stutter when singing or using a steady beat while speaking. A stuttering student figured out her own solution: when she wanted to answer a question, she tapped a steady beat on her leg before speaking. This allowed her to answer without stuttering.

As the result of a study done in 2002 by University College in London, scientists believe that a poor sense of rhythm could be the cause of dyslexia. “Researchers concluded that an awareness of beats can influence the way young children assimilate speech patterns, which may in turn affect their reading and writing abilities.”

Steady beat helps children to understand and organize their world. So if you are going to run with scissors, make sure you’ve got a good sense of steady beat. You’ll run more coordinated and smoothly, and thereby be a little bit safer.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, whose mother reported that at 2 weeks old, Analiisa consistently rocked in time to a piece of classical music that had been often played while she was in utero. But sadly, she was a horrible basketball player.

We all know that opposites attract!

Did you know that children learn concepts best in opposites? It’s why in your Kindermusik class, you’ll learn fast/slow, smooth/bumpy, high/low, among many other pairs. It’s why in school, addition and subtraction are taught back to back. It’s why when you begin to drive, your teacher makes sure you know where both the brake and the gas pedals are!

Learning opposites enhances vocabulary and word association, encourages sensory and motor development, develops discrimination and classification skills, and provides plenty of opportunity for fun games. The farther apart the opposite (black and white, hard and soft), the easier it is for children to master the concept. When you add an interactive approach, this learning becomes highly enjoyable.

Here’s a few “opposite” activities:

When doing these, be sure to label the opposite words. (It’s pretty easy to forget to do that, as we adults already know the vocabulary!)

• Try tasting some opposite things like sweet sugar and sour lemon.
• Sort round cans and square boxes when putting away the groceries.
• Music is full of opposites. Put on your favorite piece of Kindermusik (or music with pitch or tempo variation), and move high and low, or fast and slow.
• Sing a song silly! (High and then low, or fast and then slow.)
• Move. Go and stop. Take big steps, and little steps. Go under, go over.
• Open and shut the doors. Or cupboards. Cause seriously, if they don’t learn both opening and shutting in a pair now, your fridge is going to constantly be left open when they are a bit older!
• Identify back or front. Left or right. Short and tall. Boy or girl. Young or old. Dirty or clean. Empty or full.
• Feel the objects around you. Hard or soft? Rough or smooth? Hot or cold?
• Read some opposite books, and talk about what you see. Here’s some favorites: Dinosaur Roar, by Paul and Henrietta Stickland. Big Dog, Little Dog, by P.D. Eastman. The Foot Book, by Dr. Seuss.

Even babies learn opposites. Talk to your baby as you go throughout the day, and emphasize the opposite words with your vocal inflection. “I’m going to pick you up.” “We are going down the stairs.”

Really, the possibilities are endless. Just have fun with it!

-posted by Miss Analiisa, whose two oldest children are oil and water.

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.

I believe that music, as the only activity that simultaneously stimulates every area of the brain, is the best choice for my children through first grade.  But what after they were done with Kindermusik?

All my children are homeschooled, so I get to help make those choices. In my house, we continue music . Rob plays violin, Nathan plays flute. (And no, I don’t force them to do music!) But what about the other arts? Visual arts (painting, drawing, photography, graphics, set making, etc.), and kinesthetic arts (movement, dance, and theater).

My instincts told me that as my children were interested (Rob loves musical theater and gymnastics – Nathan loves Sculpey clay and drawing), I should let them integrate the other arts into their day.

Thanks to Facebook, I reconnected with 2 college girlfriends over Christmas. Pam the percussionist is now an elementary music teacher, Lucy the trumpet player now a Principal at middle and high school.  We traded memories, laughs and books.

Pam gave me a book she’d read by Eric Jensen called Arts with the Brain in Mind. It confirmed what my heart already knew – arts enhance the process of learning. The brain systems they nourish, which include our integrated sensory, attentional, cognitive, emotional and motor capabilities, are, in fact, the driving forces behind all other learning.

That doesn’t mean your child can’t learn without studying music, or visual or kinesthetic arts. The arts, however, provide learners with opportunities to simultaneously develop and mature multiple brain systems.  

The arts develop neural systems that often take months and years to fine-tune. The long-term benefits of the arts include everything from fine motor skills to creativity and improved emotional balance. 

Maybe the most valuable benefit of including the arts in your child’s education is that the arts make better human beings.  The arts promote self-discipline and motivation, social harmony, enhanced creativity, emotional expression and a greater cultural awareness.

What long-term studies are beginning to show is that students who participate in the arts may be less likely to be dropouts, have higher attendance, be better team players, and have an increased love of learning.

And who doesn’t want to have children grow up to be happy, well-balanced, creative, problem solvers, and work and play well with others?

­-posted by Miss Analiisa, who as her children’s teacher, is seeing for herself the long-term benefits of clay, paint, band and drama.

Circle dancing (literally – dancing with a group of people while standing in a circle) is not only fun, but it’s good for you and your child too!  We help build a community together when we are doing circle dances…..we’ve actually been doing that for centuries!  

A circle dance gives your child the opportunity to learn about the differences between “self-space” and “shared space” in an emotionally secure environment.  This type of dance is joyful, sociable, and simple, and yet it forms a ritual in the way that it is repeated over and over.

Did you know that when you dance that your body releases endomorphs (that chemical in our body that makes you feel good)?  Dancing is a great form of exercise that improves coordination and muscle tone.  Emotionally, dancing helps people to feel happy and confident and can even allow you to explore feelings that might be more difficult to express verbally.  Dancing can reduce stress and helps with both your circulatory and respiratory health.

In class we have been exploring a variety of movement concepts as we move to music.  This type of activity helps to develop your child’s vestibular system in several ways – teaching gravity, balance, and helping them gain a sense of where their body is in space.  A well-developed vestibular system provides emotional security, good muscle tone, develops auditory language and visual-spatial processing.  All this while you’re having fun dancing!!

So take some time to dance with your child.  You will be forming memories that will last well beyond the 2-4 minute song!!

-posted by Miss Beth, who likes to dance her way through cleaning her house!

Ever lost something and then thought “Hmm… I wonder where I put that?”  Well, now you and your child can have fun looking for the misplaced items.  Just change the words of this Our Time Away We Go song and instead of finding frustration, you and your child will find laughter and a good time looking for things.  

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!