Scat Singing with your Toddler

Parenting Tip: Sing nonsense words with your toddler!

 

Why?

Louis Armstrong is credited with creating 'scat singing' (where the voice emulates an instrument by singing nonsense syllables instead of words).  The story goes that Armstrong showed up to a gig having forgotten his horn.  His solution?  Sing all of the parts, instead! 

When we focus on specific sounds, or phonemes, in Kindermusik (like when we sing 'moo moo moo' together, during our Hello song), we are making scat-like sounds, too!  Not only that, but we are fostering your child's singing voice, and his reading development. 

Nonsense words can help your child focus on a specific sound (like the 'ee'  sound in 'eensy weensy')  Your child gets many opportunities to hear & practice that sound, as you sing the song & do the motions together.  Over time, your child' ears will begin to recognize and remember this sound so that she can also pick it out of other words and use it more fluently. 

This awareness of tiny sounds, which are the word-building blocks called phonemes, is a crucial pre-reading skill.

 

How?

Be Bears & Bunnies! What silly words can you use to announce the arrival of the bears (b-b-b-bear!  G-g-g-grrr!) and of the bunnies (hippety hop! Bity bity bity bunny!)?

Next, cue up the Hello song, from Kindermusik's Down on the Ground CD.  What silly sounds can you think of, to sing together?  Use our ideas from class to get started (la-la-la; moo-moo-moo; doo-bee-doo), then see what other ideas your child might have. 

Then, play the Which Dog? game!  Can you make different dog sounds for each one?

 

Want to Learn More?

On our blog: sing with the scat cat, and Scooby-Dooby-Doo-Wap, together!

 

Kindermusik 7-Year Continuum:

As a baby, your child made many nonsense sounds as she tried out new ways to use her mouth muscles and her voice.  Now, as a toddler, you are modeling ways to use nonsense sounds with singing (all the while helping him perfect those same mouth muscle movements & vocal control).  As a preschooler, your child will use those vocal and speech skills to help tell musical stories – and maybe add their own musical improvisation to songs ('What do you hear in our Kindermusik backyard?  A bird!  Everyone sing with a bird voice!').  As a big kid in Young Child class, your child will learn to sing in a group, using her vocal & mouth coordination to enunciate the words of the song, so that all can understand the lyrics.