Studio3Music Blog

Posts Tagged ‘sensory systems’

Dec
5

Making a Mess

Posted in Child Development, Education, Things to do

I really like the dance we do this time of year called Fum, Fum, Fum! The babies in class love all the sensory input – watching the swishing scarves, moving through the dance, and hearing the music. The more your little one has opportunity to experience activities through all senses, the stronger and more permanent learning will be.

In Spring and Summer, the outside world is chock full of colors, smells, tastes, sounds, and things to touch. By this time of year, socks and shoes are back on, mittens cover little fingers, and hats muffle noises.

Did you know that together, hands and feet have over 40,000 touch receptors? Pull off those socks and mittens and take advantage of those 40,000 learning possibilities! Here are some ideas:

Note: All of these work equally well for hands or feet. A tablecloth/oilcloth on the floor or bathtub work well for the feet activities, and a highchair tray or wax paper on a table is a perfect place to contain the mess made by experimenting little hands. Be sure to talk about what your little one is “feeling” (slippery, soft, rough, smooth, scratchy, bumpy).

Squirt shaving cream or whipped cream onto feet, or in little mounds on a high chair tray for exploration.
Put dried beans or breakfast cereal in a box or plastic tub. Place packing peanuts or crumpled paper in the other box. Let your little one stomp and jump and kick away. (With your help, a non-walker can do this, too.)
Make a box of ribbon and fabric scraps of various textures (satin, grosgrain, fleece, burlap, vinyl) for exploration.
Take those ribbons and scraps of fabric, add some cotton balls, and put them on floor for your little one to crawl or walk across.
Cook noodles, oatmeal, rice or jello. Name the different textures as you play with them.
Mix cornstarch and water until you get a goop about the consistency of glue. Add food coloring if you wish. This is a non-toxic mixture, so no worries if a little bit gets eaten.

This is not the time to try and contain the mess! Frequently, the messier the experience, the more is learned. Think about it – the more touch receptors (and other senses) that are involved, the stronger and more permanent the learning will be.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, whose favourite sensory activity involves sand between her toes.

Tags: babies, brain, language development, Miss Analiisa, sensory systems, toddlers, touch

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Jul
21

The Arts Develop Smarts!

Posted in Child Development, Education, Music and the brain

Over the next several days, take some time to observe your children (or someone else’s) at play. Notice how many times singing, dancing, coloring, creating, music making, drawing, sculpting (think play dough) occurs. All of these activities are natural forms of art.

I love how Wikipedia defines art: “Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions and intellect.”

That definition totally fits with what we know about brain development from birth to 7. During this period, the brain’s entire job is to organize information (deliberately arrange items) it receives from all the senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, vestibular, proprioceptive), and then learn what to do with that info.

Every time a child has a sensory experience and the brain processes (organizes) the input, neural networks are formed. Your child chooses to engage in the arts during play because he or she instinctively knows the arts are the best way to develop the brain.

As a side note, these networks are largely completed by the age of 5, and after the age of 8, neural pathways that aren’t well traveled are pruned away. (Which is why children who learn a second language during the preschool years speak like natives, and most of us who didn’t take Spanish until high school will always sound like, well…embarrassing.)

Okay. Back to the arts. Arts, especially music, help wire the brain for the kind of learning that occurs in school after the age of seven.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that art is “the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others.” Sharing the arts (group dances, playing instruments in ensemble, working together on a painting) enhances social skills.

The arts also develop essential thinking tools such as perception, attention, symbolic thinking, self-regulation, pattern recognition, reasoning, intuition, memory, differentiation, manipulation, encoding and decoding. Lots of big concepts, but what does this all translate to?

Your child’s painting and dancing and sculpting and especially music making in the preschool years, is the best thing you can do now to help your child later become an avid reader, a lover of math, a self-confident teenager, a curious chemist, a successful entrepreneur, and, of course, an accomplished musician.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who suggests taking inventory of your art baskets and music making and creating supplies this summer, and making sure they well stocked.

Tags: babies, brain, dancing, learning, Miss Analiisa, music, preschoolers, sensory systems

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Jun
20

The Nature Smart and Body Smart Child

Posted in Child Development, Education, parenting, Things to do

This is the final blog in the series about making the “Multiple Intelligences Theory” practical. One of the things that I like about Howard Gardner’s ideas is that although our society tends to associate intelligence with word-smart and language-smart people, others shouldn’t be valued any less. They are intelligent, too.

This world would be a pretty dull place without the musicians, gardeners, scientists, actors, teachers, therapists, movie producers, artists, architects, dancers, sculptors, lawyers, archeologists and athletes.

Naturalist Intelligence (Nature Smart):

Nature smart children (as you might guess), feel a special affinity with nature, and love to explore and learn about the environment – from animals to cloud formations. They prefer to be out of doors, doing activities like boating, hiking and camping. From a very early age they prefer television shows about nature or animals. They probably will beg you for a pet. Or three.

These children are good at organizing and cataloging the information from their natural surroundings, and you might expect them to come home with pockets full of rocks, shells, bugs, and plants, and know what they all are! Nature smart children have keen senses (sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing) which allow them to be aware of subtle changes and details in their environment.

If you have a nature smart child, they might grow up to be a gardener, biologist, archeologist, chef, farmer, geologist or even an FBI agent in a crime lab.

How to Encourage Your Nature Smart Child:

outside walks and hikes (take a guided tour of a local arboretum or botanical garden)
create a nature scrapbook with photos, drawings, pressed flowers, etc.
vegetable and flower gardening
take care of animals
collect and observe nature with a microscope or magnifying glass
stargazing
DVD Series like The BBC’s Planet Earth and The Seas of Life or Atlas of the Natural World
visit the zoo, aquarium or a natural history museum
building – volcano, terrarium, bird feeder

Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence (Body Smart):

These children have the ability to skillfully manipulate both physical objects and their bodies. They have a good sense of timing and eye-hand coordination, and developed physical skills become like reflexes. Body smart children excel in activities like sports, dance and acting. They will likely frequently ask you to take them to the playground. They have a lot of energy, and don’t seem to sit still for long.

Body smart children have good fine and gross motor skills, and enjoy building as well as taking things apart and putting them back together. They learn by doing, rather than hearing or seeing. These children enjoy tactile experiences such as sand, water and play dough.

When they grow up, a body smart child might become an actor, sculptor, builder, dancer, pilot, athlete, surgeon, craftsperson, emergency worker or soldier.

How to Encourage Your Body Smart Child:

obstacle courses
hands on crafts – clay, finger painting, cutting with scissors, beading, tracing, knitting, sidewalk chalk
learn sign language
messy activities – cooking, gardening, building sandcastles, mud pies, water balloon fights
active games, both competitive and cooperative
skits and puppet shows
build small models or larger structures in your backyard
draw letters, shapes or simple pictures on each others’ backs and guess what it is
dancing

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who now appreciates even more the wonderful ways were are individually created.

Tags: Miss Analiisa, parenting, physical development, science, sensory systems, Things to do

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Apr
19

I found my hands. Let’s play some games!

Posted in Child Development, Games for Babies, parenting, Things to do

Classic "Airplane Baby"

4 to 6 months
One of the biggest changes that will occur during these months is that the parts of your baby’s brain that coordinate sight and touch are now integrating the incoming sensory information. This enables your baby to figure out where her hands are in space (thanks to the proprioceptive system), and make them do what she wants.

With the beginnings of depth-perception, this sight/touch sensory integration means he can reach for an object and pick it up. By about 6 months, he is also able to rotate his wrists, and thus manipulate objects.

What to watch for: These are the signs that your baby’s brain is organizing sensory input exactly as it should.

Banging objects and toys. (Against the floor, or two objects together.)
Spontaneous bringing together in a clapping motion of her hands in front of her body. This is the first sign of coordination between both sides of her body. To assist in this developmental milestone, you can play clapping games with your baby even before she can play them by herself.

Ram Sam Sam is a children’s song that originated in Morocco, and was a favorite clapping game of my children when they were infants and toddlers, especially on the changing table. You can listen to the song here,

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and download it directly at play.kindermusik.com.

A ram sam sam, a ram sam sam (clap your baby’s hands or feet together as you sing)
Guli guli guli guli guli (roll your baby’s hands or bicycle his legs)
ram sam sam (clap your baby’s hands or feet together as you sing)
A ram sam sam, a ram sam sam (clap your baby’s hands or feet together as you sing)
Guli guli guli guli guli (roll your baby’s hands or bicycle his legs)
ram sam sam (clap your baby’s hands or feet together as you sing)
A ra-vi, a ra-vi (lift your baby’s arms over his head, or fold his legs up toward his head)
Guli guli guli guli guli (roll your baby’s hands or bicycle his legs)
ram sam sam (clap your baby’s hands or feet together as you sing)
A ra-vi, a ra-vi (lift your baby’s arms over his head, or fold his legs up toward his head)
Guli guli guli guli guli (roll your baby’s hands or bicycle his legs)
ram sam sam (clap your baby’s hands or feet together as you sing)

Touch Me
As babies begin to coordinate sight and touch, they delight in “touching” games. Here’s a fun naming game to play. (And yes, babies can begin to learn body part labels, even if they can’t yet speak the words!) I found many versions of the lyrics brought to the US by immigrants from all over Europe. Many people commented that this was a beloved touch game played with grandparents, even at 4 or 5 years of age. Here are a couple of versions:

Here is where the coachman sits (touch baby’s forehead)
Here is where he cracks his whip (touch bridge of nose)
Eye winker (touch or circle one eye)
Tom tinker (touch or circle the other eye)
Nose breather (touch nose)
Mouth eater (touch mouth)
Chin chopper (touch chin)
Gully, gully, gully (tickle under chin)

Here sits the Lord Mayor (touch baby’s forehead)
Here sits his two men (touch eyes)
Here sits the rooster (touch cheek)
Here sits the hen (touch other cheek)
Here sits the chickens (touch nose)
Here they run in (touch mouth)
Chin-chopper, chin-chopper,
Chin-chopper, chin! (tickle under chin)

Airplane Baby
At about 6 months, a baby on his tummy really feels the pull of gravity, which gives baby a strong desire to lift up his head, neck, upper back, arms and legs all at the same time, resulting in the classic “airplane” position.

Babies at this age want and need to have their vestibular systems stimulated by rocking, swooshing, twirling, swinging and other similar movements. One word of caution – every person (grownups, too!) has a level of moment they can tolerate, and it’s different for everyone. If your baby begins to cry during a moving game, this means that the play has become too rough or wild for your baby’s vestibular system to handle, and the level of play is actually causing her brain to disorganize.

Hold your baby firmly around her body, tummy down, in a horizontal position. Take off! Fly your baby around the room, swooshing, dipping, spinning, rolling, starting, stopping as it pleases your baby. Be sure to make airplane sounds! If you would like some musical inspiration, download Run and Jump/Soaring from play.kindermusik.com.

As your baby turns into a toddler and preschooler, lie on your back on the floor and bend your knees with your feet off the floor. Have your child place his tummy against the bottoms of your feet. Hold onto your child’s hands. Lift your child up towards the ceiling as you raise your feet and fly!

-posted by Miss Analiisa, whose 9 year old Rob would love to still play airplane on her feet, but at 86 pounds, would likely crush the lift-off mechanism.

Tags: babies, brain, games, kindermusik, learning, Miss Analiisa, physical development, sensory systems, Things to do, touch, vestibular system

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Apr
13

Two and Three Months: From Head to Hands

Posted in Child Development, parenting

I was going to call this “From Head to Toe”, as a baby’s motor skills start with her head and eventually make their way down to her toes, but by three months, motor skills have only really made it as far as her fingers, and even then, not really well.

Nathan thinking that the best way to help his 3 month old brother to have a steady head is to hold him up by the ear...

From Head

If you remember from the last blog on month one of your infant’s life, the head and neck are the first body parts a baby learns to control. This ability aids in visual perception. In order to be able to focus your eyes on an object, you have to be able to hold the image still, even when your head or body or the object is moving.

In addition, to see clearly, the brain has to coordinate gravity and movement sensations from the inner ear (the vestibular system), and sensations from eye and neck muscles. Babies are born with all the necessary pieces of the visual system in place, but can’t use them properly yet. They have to literally learn to see.

At first, infants have to move their whole head to move their eyes. But around 2 to 3 months, infants learn how to shift their gaze from one object to another without having to move their head. (As a side note, it’s not until between 4 and 6 months that babies can see the colors blue or violet. So when your 3 month old doesn’t jump for joy every time she sees those purple striped nursery walls you so carefully hand-painted, just wait a month or two.)

Just as the sensations of gravity stimulated the part of the brain that activated the neck muscles of the one month old, the same sensations stimulate the brain to contract the muscles in the upper back of a 2 and 3 month old. Your baby is literally commanded by his brain to raise up his head and upper body when laying his tummy.

Since your baby’s brain is stimulating those muscles, tummy time becomes of utmost importance. I remember Rob’s Occupational Therapist saying how important tummy time was for developing muscles in the back and shoulders, and that she was seeing a lot of Kindergarten and early elementary aged children for fine motor skill issues, and the connection between them seemed to be a lack of tummy time as infants.

One word of encouragement – if your baby doesn’t like tummy time, that’s okay. Keep trying. Frustration is the catalyst for change. Meaning… she’ll to pull her head and neck up with enough practice, because she doesn’t really want to see the carpet; she wants to see what is around her.

To Hands

As an infant begins to see better, he begins to reach for the objects and people in his space. Unfortunately, hand-eye coordination isn’t very well developed at this point, so he appears to be “batting” at objects with open hands.

When he does grasp something you put into his hand, he’ll only uses three fingers and the palm of his hand (not his forefinger and thumb). The touch sensations have yet to integrate with the sensations in his muscles and joints in his hands, but when that happens, he’ll be able to make that pincer grasp he will eventually need for the glockenspiel mallets in Young Child!

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who is amazed that children can go from floppy to walking in just 12 short months.