Family music making

Having grandparents come visit the Kindermusik classroom is a regular and happy experience!  There is no greater cheerleader than a grandparent coming to encourage each growing musician!  I think that the  classroom becomes more celebratory in any grandparent visiting day because of the joy in their hearts that they carry with them for each accomplishment!  

This particular day we were privileged to have a 4 generation class.  Both grandparents and great grandma were there for these girls' class, joining right in with the songs and rhymes and whole body movements!  Even great grandma got in on the fun using shakers to play along.  Music is about community!  Music is about joy!  Music is meant to be shared!  

Music as a game changer

The most recent issue of "Today's Parent" magazine has an article touting the benefits of music for your child.  While just a few short years ago parents were jumping on the bandwagon of having their children experience the "Mozart Effect", as it turns out, it isn't so much the listening to music that changes your child's learning potential, intellect, or even brain structure.*

What has the biggest effect on children is their interaction with the music!

This is just exactly what we at Kindermusik have been saying all these years.  You can play music for children as background music, but it isn't going to have nearly the same effect for them as when you get out instruments and play along, move your body to the rhythms, rock to the steady beat, or use your own voice to sing along.  In Kindermusik classes we help families to make music in class, so that the familiar activities become home favourites, as well.  It is just the process of taking it beyond the CD player to the bodies and voices that solidifies the learning, actually changing the brain's structure.

Each activity you do, each class you attend, each semester you enroll in, each home activity that you do together is building a bigger and better learning outcome for your child by combining sensory and motor elements!  All that with a smile on your and your child's faces - now that is AWESOME!!

*  If you would like to read more, please find the article on-line at http://www.todaysparent.com/activities/can-music-make-your-child-smarter

Starry, starry night

Home made paper stars are just the thing to add a little "pizzazz" to a treasured song and story.  Love adding a craft to our already engaging Imagine That classes :)

Of course, a music class wouldn't be complete without adding "Twinkle twinkle Little Star", but we expanded that standard with other elements, too!  As we twinkled our stars above, we listened to the hushed expression of the children's classic story, "Goodnight Moon", then danced our stars into the night to the magical sounds of "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy", now transformed into our "starry dance".  

Oh, the joy of paper and pretend!