Here’s another beautiful Studio3Music birthday boy, with professional photographer Brooke’s and mom Lisa’s comments. Doesn’t he just look so kissable?

Brooke:  So oh my goodness…if every baby made it as easy as birthday boy Liam! Just seconds from being a real “walker”, happy little Liam was all smiles and love for his Mommy Lori (cooing at him just off camera). Usually, the grown-ups have to shamelessly perform like trained circus animals to get those amazing expressions from our kids, but Liam generously shared them without the usual acrobatics! He’s the type that lures all of use into having more babies…and we all know what happens when the first baby is a dream, right?

Lori:  Brooke is quite professional, does great work and has superb artistic skill. She has a great way with kids, and was very efficient with our quick little man’s attention span ; )

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who encourages you to visit Brooke’s website, and then use your Studio3Music birthday free session gift!

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.

Bonjour!

As some of you know, I was off once again to see some of my family who live in France.  I love it there, and the people are so nice and inviting!  My cousin, his family and some friends live outside of Paris.  My sister and her family live in the French Alps in a small village with great skiing! The landscape is amazing and the food is incredible.  And although we live thousands of miles apart, thanks to the internet and Skype, I can visit and see my family and friends who live all over the world.  It IS a small world after all!

So here are some fun facts about France and a little French lesson too:

Capital: Paris

Language: French

Ne vous escaladez les montagnes? (Do you climb mountains?) The highest mountain is Mont Blanc in the French Alps. It rises to 4,807m (15,771 ft). Mount Blanc is also the highest peak in the whole of Europe. Btw, I could see it when we were skiing!

Vous aimez le fromage? (Do you like cheese?) More than 350 kinds of cheese are made in France.

Avez-vous une bicyclette ? (Do you have a bicycle?) Every summer more than 100 professional cyclists race in the Tour de France. The race is approximately 2,000 miles long. The race lasts up to three weeks and is held in July. The route changes from year to year.

Vous aimez l’art? (Do you like art?) The Louvre is one of the largest art museums in the world. Some of the paintings exhibited there are from the French artists Monet, Cezanne, and Renoir.  The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci is there too.

Avez-vous faim? (Are you hungry?)  Then try some dishes such as quiche, soufflés, mousse, pâté, croissants, crêpes, French bread and my personal favorite….fondue.

J’aime la Tour Eiffel! (I love the Eiffel Tower!) Visit here for facts about the Tower.

-posted by Miss Beth, who is very glad to be back with you all in class, even though she loves to travel!

Babies and toddlers enjoy blowing. As they practice blowing, they strengthen mouth muscles and develop awareness of their breathing, which will help their language development.

With preschoolers and early elementary, blowing develops their diaphragms and builds muscle control necessary for singing and wind instrument playing.

Blowing also helps children become aware of the fact that they can use breath to make a variety of sounds, move things, blow out candles, or create a cooling breeze.

Blowing for all ages
Blow kisses – even babies can do this!
Blow through a straw into your milk, juice or water.
Blow bubbles
Play a slide whistle or a harmonica (like the one in this semester’s Our Time)
Put a dab of watercolor or thinned tempura paint on a piece of paper. Blow on it with a straw and make beautiful designs.

For older children
Put a fluffy craft feather partially into the end of a drinking straw. Blow on the other end and see how far you can make the feather fly!
Place a ping pong ball on the table. With players on each side of the table, try to blow it off your opponent’s side with a drinking straw.
Whistle
Play a duck call or kazoo

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who wants you to breathe in through your nose, and blow out through your mouth three times right now. Don’t you feel calmer?

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.

Brooke: I’m setting up in the camera room and I hear a little excited voice from the front lobby yell – “I’m at the studio!!!” (If only every person that came to get their portraits made had as much enthusiasm as these little girls.) We’ve been loving all of the birthday portraits we’ve been shooting as part of our friendship with Studio3Music. Twins, Piper and Casey were at Studio B in celebration of their 4^th birthday and they couldn’t have been more sweet and fun to photograph.

Laura: That was our first session with Brooke and I thought she was great.  She worked with such easy-going finesse and speed, she probably got most of the shots before the girls (and I, for that matter!) realized that she was taking actual pictures!  I can’t wait to see the rest of the shots! Thanks for such a special birthday gift – what a great partnership between StudioB and Studio3!

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who reminds you that if you miss your birthday card in the mail from us and want a complimentary mini-session with Brooke, just let me know.