Week 4, Foundations of Learning
Musical activities and reading books with expression and associated activities, help children develop a deeper and fuller mastery of language. Everything we do in our Kindermusik classes helps children develop both their musical and linguistic skills. (Magic Trees of the Mind by Marian Diamond & Janet Hopson)
Toilet Paper Roll Shaker
Have your child decorate a toilet paper roll. (Picture 1)
After the roll is decorated staple one end of the roll. (Picture 2)
After stapling drop a FEW beans, pieces of rice, dried corn, etc. into the roll. (Picture 3)
Then staple the roll the opposite way as shown in the picture. (Picture 4)
Now SHAKE! SHAKE! SHAKE!
To expand your child’s learning you can make several shakers and put different items and different amounts of items into various shakers. Then help your child compare the different sounds that the various shakers make. Help them draw conclusion about how the type of items and amount of items effect the sounds the shakers make.
Week 2, Foundation of Learning
Village
Speech: Infants learns to speak from watching the mouths of parents and other care givers. Language heard through other media is too quick and fleeting for the child to associate mouth movement with sound. You’re child needs to hear and see you speak and sing. The greater the frequency and variety of sounds and words you use in caring for your child the greater his or her ability is to understand and learn to speak. Singing often and directly to your child is great way to help your child hear and understand language. From Simple Steps by Karen Miller.
Repetition: As a baby or child practices a favorite activity they are actually helping their brain grow. Growth and development of the child from birth to seven years old, takes place primarily through the child’s movement and touch experiences. Repetition aids in solidifying the pathways in the brain that are formed and reinforced through touch and movement activities. The child enjoys and needs to experience activities over and over and over and over again to form and reinforce links and pathways in the brain that the child will use in future learning.
Active Listening: There is a difference between hearing and listening. Children have to be taught to listen. Listening is a process that stretches beyond the physical act of hearing and involves intellectual and emotional processing. It requires the listener to listen with ears, mind, and heart to understand what is being communicated. Active listening is done through interaction and is vital to learning. In Imagine That we are developing our active listening skills by listening to and imitating different types of drums. Your at home activity guild has information about the various drums we are listening to and imitating in class.
Foundation of Learning statements or FOL’s explain “why” we do “what we do” in the Kindermusik classroom. Each week my blog will highlight an FOL and how class activities relate to that FOL. Most activities relate to several FOLs. If you want more information on a particular FOL, please ask me for a more detailed explanation!
Kindermusik Spring Semester, Week 1
Village, Vestibular Stimulation and Touch
Infants and toddlers learn from movement and touch. It is through repeated touch sensations that young infants discover their bodies. Touch sensations, along with the vestibular system, work together to teach baby his relationship to everything around him. An understanding of the world, and a sense of balance and coordination, is enhanced through a variety of movement experience. As a child grows up, he is much more competent with his ability to move and try new physically related activities when he has experience a wide variety of movement experiences as an infant.
It is through touch and the vestibular system that a child starts to understand and categorize the many sensory experience that are part of his day. The auditory system and vestibular system work together and are both centered in the ear. The vestibular system is stimulated and learns as a child is moved in a variety of different ways. As the vestibular system develops a child is better able to differentiate between various sounds in the environment and language.
In class we touch the children in ways that might not be part of their normal routine. We also explore the many ways to hold and move with our children that aren’t usually part of ever day care. Our goal is to learn to incorporate a wide variety of touch and movement activities into our child’s everyday routine.
Our Time, Musical Improvisation and Personalization
When children use music as a means of personal expression and communication all the learning centers in brain work together. Music’s greatest powers lie in helping the child learn to use music as a means of personal expression. In class when children make their own movement choices we are helping them learn to communicate through music. For example when we sing the “Our Time Welcome Song” and we ask Izzy what movement she want us to sing for her and she bounce up and down she is communicating that she want us to sing, “It’s our time to Jump with Izzy……..” In so doing she has just had all the learning centers in her brain work together to communicate her desires to us. Through this process she is laying pathways in the brain that will help her with a wide variety of future learning. In class we are always trying to encourage children to personalize our music activities by making their own movement and word choices. At home make up words to tunes you know to communicate with your child. Encourage your child to sing and make up their own songs as they play, this type of improvisation is wonderful for your child’s developing brain.
Imagine That, Pretend Play
Our entire Image That semester is built around pretending to visit a Toy Shop that has no toys. One by one we meet the various toys that the Toy Maker builds and with these toys we travel and explore the world. While class activities do develop specific musical skill, the overall theme of the class lays a foundation for language and literary development. “Various studies have linked pretend play with language and literacy development. These studies further suggested that fantasy play incorporates aspects of adult speech as well as the opportunity for children to increase their vocabulary as they create themes and scripts and communicate these ideas to each other.” (Early Childhood Education: Blending Theory, Blending Practice, Johnson, LaMontagne, Elgas, bauer, pp.114-115.) Our whole Image That semester is designed to do exactly that. Together the children and I will create our own personalized story.
Miss Mindy’s January Music Note
The Value of Finger Plays and Nursery Rhymes!
For most children handwriting is synonymous with torture. The handwriting of today’s children and youth is barely legible. Research indicates that this is caused not only by a lack of emphasis on handwriting but also because the way young children use their hands now is very different than 50 to 100 years ago. In generations past children, even toddlers, used their hands to work. The day was full of work demanding the use of the hands: sewing, scrubbing, hammering, chopping, picking, kneed dough, etc. They developed hand coordination and muscles tone that today’s push button electronics children just don’t have.
In the past when children learned to write they already had the fine motor skills and muscle tone required to write neatly, all they had to learn was how to shape the letters. Today children have to develop the fine motor skills and hand muscles needed to write while learning to form the letters. This puts their brains on overload and in some cases children simple don’t have the coordination and muscles needed for writing! Writing truly is a torturous process for them.
Finger plays and Nursery rhymes allow children to use their hands and develop the coordination and muscles that will help them write. Using basic sign language also gets fingers moving. Another way to get children using their hands is have them do simple jobs around the house. Give them a scrub brush, a towel, and a small bucket of water. Have them scrub and wipe an area of the kitchen floor. It will keep them busy, get them using their hands, and you’ll have one area of your kitchen floor clean!
Another great value of nursery rhymes and finger plays is that they RHYME. Infants' and young children’s phonological awareness is accelerated in an environment rich with rhyming and rhythmic speech. Phonetic sound discrimination is the first step in learning to speak and a vital pre-literacy skill. When a child hears the same phonetic sounds spoken close together it enhances the brains ability to identify and record that particular and unique sound. I’ll be talking more about phonological awareness in February’s music note.
Resources
Local libraries have a large supply of nursery rhyme and finger play books, CD’s and DVD’s.
“Mainly Mother Goose” by Sharon, Louis, & Bram, is one of my all time favorite children’s CDs. You can listen to the CD at: http://www.rhapsody.com/sh
Spring Semester of Kindermusik begins the week of January 3rd!
Our Time (18 months to 3 years)
Mondays 9:30-10:15, and 4:00-4:45
Musical Focus: Learn to identify sounds as high or low, fast or slow, loud or quiet. Be able to feel a steady beat, experience a wide variety of music and movement genres, and exposure to musical vocabulary words.
Life Skills Learning: Active listening, large muscle and fine motor skill development, balance and stability, vocal expressiveness, pretend play, social competency, cooperative games, ensemble play, turn taking, creativity.
Imagine That (ages 3 to 5)
Thursday 9:15-10:10, parents are invited to join us for the last 10 minutes of class.
Please have your child bring his drum and play set to class every week. He’ll be getting his play set the first week of class and getting new pieces each week. I’ll be giving each child a bag they can keep the play set in.
Musical Focus: Learn to identify different timbre in music, develop a musical vocabulary, and gain confidence in singing. Accurately echo singing, chanting, and patting of rhythmic phrases. Learn to move to and play a steady beat. Identify, sign, and sing the so-mi-la, interval. Lay a foundation for more advanced music study.
Life Skills Learning: Explore and understand the world through pretend play, pre-literacy and vocabulary development , continued large muscle and fine motor skill development, social competency skills, ensemble play and turn-taking, active listening, memory and attention development. Engage in constructive learning; learning that allows children to reflect, compare, make choices, express opinions, communicate preferences, and problem solve.
Village (birth to 18-months)
Wednesday 11:30-12:15
Musical Focus: Experience a steady beat, exposure to a wide genre of music, exploration of sound and rhythm instruments, enjoy engaging in musical play.
Life skills Learning: Vestibular stimulation, this is the first sense to fully develop and allows the infant to interpret and integrate sensations from the other senses. Develop visual-spatial skills, tactile perception, language, active listening, and relaxation skills. Build self-awareness and social skills, bonding between parent and child. Limited exposure to ASL.
All classes will be taught at the beautiful Sweetwater Bay Montessori Home Preschool, located at 936 N. Sweetwater Bay, Gilbert AZ. Please contact Miss Mindy to get the gate code. The preschool is located in the Val Vista Lakes subdivision. Here is the map link:
I’ll be doing weekly posts to my Kindermusik blog (kindermusikwithmindy.blogspot.com). I’ll post pictures and explanations of what we’re doing in class to enhance your child’s development. You’ll want to check the blog regularly!
