Ocean in a Bottle

We just finished our Creatures of the Ocean class. Here are the instructions for making an ocean in a bottle. If you want to down load the Slippery Fish/Octopus song we used in class click HERE. The song is called Octopus and is on Charlotte Diamonds, “10 Crunchy Carrots” album.


What you need:
•  Empty 2 liter plastic bottle with a lid
• Clear vegetable oil or mineral oil
• Water
• Funnel
• Blue food coloring
• Small star fish, shells and other sea creatures
• Glitter
• White craft glue
• Hot glue (get an adult to help with hot glue)


Steps:
1. Wash and dry 2-liter bottle and remove all labels.
2. Fill bottle halfway with tap water.
3. Add a few drops of blue food coloring and swirl around to mix.
4. Add a little glitter.
5. Add sea cratures.
6. Using funnel, fill the bottle the rest of the way with vegetable oil.
7. Make sure the rim and cap are dry, then apply white craft glue around the rim. Seal cap.
8. Have an adult use a layer around the outside edge to keep it from leaking.
9. Turn the bottle on it’s side and gently rock the bottle to create your very own waves!

Source:  http://funschool.kaboose.com/fun-blaster/summer/crafts/ocean-bottle.html

Creativity & Kindermusik

The importance of developing childhood creativity is discussed in the July 10^th issue of Newsweek.  The article affirms what Kindermusik parents already know, that pretend play helps develop a child’s creativity.  In Kindermusik we are nearly always pretending.  The article states, “Preschoolers who spend more time in role-playing (acting out characters) have higher measures of creativity: voicing someone else’s point of view helps develop their ability to analyze situations from different perspectives.” The article also discusses how role-playing helps a child explore and understand emotions.  Singing about emotions is a safe and appropriate way to learn about being, sad, frustrated, angry, etc. and also about happiness, fun, and love, etc.

Kindermusik’s home materials offer your child a chance to pretend play and explore emotion every day.  To help them explore and understand emotions have them sing songs showing different emotions with their faces and through their voices.  Encourage them to change the words to the song to better communicate emotion and give the song additional meaning.  You can also use musical play to help develop creativity. You are improving your child’s problem-solving abilities every time you help them explore an instrument or the various sounds an object can make, (What is another way you can play the sticks? While driving in the car, your children can explore the different types of body percussion they can produce. Make sure they explore making quiet body percussion or they might drive you crazy!)  Many Kindermusik songs naturally encourage role playing with movement, (How else can you move like a monkey?) When we explore props in class we’re always trying to figure out new ways to use the prop, (What else could this hoop be, how else could you move it?).  Participation in Kindermusik fosters the development of creativity, problem solving, and emotional understanding!  

To read the actual article click HERE.  (It’s a bit long but has some points worth thinking about.)

Our Time! Edible Crab Craft

We had so much fun today making an edible crab in Creatures of the Ocean today.  I wanted to share the idea on my blog.  You can down load the crab song HERE

Beat Acquisition: Help your children learn to find and move to the beat.  Clapping to the beat, patting the beat on your legs, and moving to the beat are all different skills.  Children will learn to find the beat faster if you pat it on their back or sway with them to the beat.  You want their whole body, not just their hands to feel the beat. Be patient, it can take a long time to learn to keep a steady beat.  Most children learn to keep a steady beat somewhere between the ages of 4 and 7.  Beat acquisition is a great asset in athletic pursuits. It is part of body-kinesthetic and spatial learning. Most all learning involves patterns and you have to understand beat before you can see a pattern.  Import learning pathways are laid in the brain as a child learns to feel and move to a steady beat.  

Using musical play to enhance your child’s development!

Inner Hearing: Inner hearing is an important part of musicianship.  A musician needs to be able to hear, in his head, what a song and note should sound like without actually singing or playing.   Inner Hearing is a skill that takes time and practice to develop.  Play games where you and your children only sing certain words in a song and see if you can stay together. (Songs like Bingo)  You can choose to sing whole songs in your head except a few key words to see if your staying together. This is a great activity to keep you all entertained in the car.  If you sing quietly you can even use the activity in the grocery store line and the doctors office. While participating in this activity, your children are also learning self-control. You must be able to hear songs in your head to sing rounds and sing harmony.  Start with rhythm rounds where you each clap different rhythms and progress to singing rounds.   

Pictures!

We just finished our ZOO TRAIN unit and ADVENTURES AROUND THE WORLD!  Here are a few photo highlights.  To see all the photos I've taken click Here.  The username is kindermusikmm and the password is imagineartsstudio.

This summer my blog will feature 8 ways you can use musical play to enhance your child’s development! 

Singing:  The first instrument a child can master is his or her own voice.  It is through singing that children develop their sense of pitch.  Be careful having children sing songs with jazzed up accompaniments.  A young child’s untrained ear has a hard time knowing which, of the many pitches they are hearing, is the right pitch to sing.  Stick to simple folk songs with simple accompaniments for singing.  Singing acapella is wonderful.  Sing books to your children.  To help strengthen the coordination between the brain hemispheres have your children make up their own words to songs, try to vary the tempo and dynamics of your singing.  Help your child learn to color their language by conveying emotion through how they sing. Explore singing loud, soft, happy, sad, etc.  You can also help them build their musical vocabulary by using words like forte and pianissimo, rather than loud and soft, or legato and staccato in place of smooth and bumpy.  When they are angry or excited see if you can get them to sing their emotions to you.  You can try it too.  It's a great way to help diffuse anger or frustration and help improve communicate.  When my children were younger, I found that singing instructions or directions really made them stop and listen to what I was saying.