Toddlers: Using Music to Teach Listening

Focus - ACTIVE LISTENING

In almost every class, we have an activity that focuses on the act of listening.  Hearing and listening are different. Your ears and brain naturally receive sound from the environment.  Listening, however, is an intentional, mental process that requires attention and focus as the brain sorts and interprets sounds.  Listening is key to learning, as well as for nurturing connections with others.  Listening activities that focus on one sound at a time, help children practice the skills of attention, and engaged listening. 

How do we practice it in Kindermusik with toddlers?

From honing in on the owl's call, to discovering ways to make sound on our drums;  From listening to the upward and downward chimes in Sunshine Play and moving the parachute accordingly, to focusing in on the held note ('fermata') during Zoomeo. We use our ears EVERY week!

On our blog - Learn more about how to help develop your child's listening skills!

Kindermusik@Home:

• Log in to your Kindermusik @ Home account, and make some Windy Weather!
• Once you have the wind going, create some sky crafts, to ride on the wind!  
• Get the whole family together, and have a windy dance party!  Play I Can't See the Wind, and enjoy dancing like wind-blown leaves, all around the house! 

Music & Movement with Babies: Pathways

Focus - PATHWAYS IN MOVEMENT

Toddlers are kinesthetic learners.  They learn by moving, and doing!  In movement activities, like our If I Were a Raindrop dance, we're maximizing your child's spatial awareness by helping her to experience different pathways in her movement.  By labeling the movement pathway you are taking, you are also building your child's vocabulary, and his understanding of what he is experiencing in class.  These experiences, which connect vocabulary and movement, will build both vocabulary and movement skills.

On our blog - did you know that movement activates the brain?

Kindermusik@Home:

• Log in to your Kindermusik @ Home account, and talk words of position, with your child! 
• Then, have some fun with a hulahoop :) 
• Get out a throw blanket (or a bed-sheet) and take your child around the house on a blanket ride!  Will you take a straight, or curvy path?  Turn on the Waddaly Atcha song from your home CD, and ride away! 

Preschool Music: Learning through Contrast

Focus - LEARNING THROUGH CONTRAST

Learning through opposites enhances vocabulary and word association, encourages sensory and motor development, develops discrimination and classification skills, and provides plenty of opportunity for fun games!

On our blog - did you like the jazzy music at the ball, this week?  Then try this Scooby-Dooby-Doo-Wop jazz activity!

Kindermusik@Home -

• Log in to your Kindermusik @ Home account, and play the Dolphins & Seagulls game!  Will you swim down low, or fly up high? 
• Then, search around town for some dinosaur (or dragon?) eggs!  Help your child to discover the opposites in the game (that egg is up high, on the shelf, but this egg is down low!). 
• Teach your whole family how to dance at the ball, by playing Sing a Song of Sixpence (from your home CD).  Remind them that the Queen prefers tiptoe dancing, with much grace and restraint, while Rupert & the pirates rather enjoy jazzy dancing.  Enjoy exploring contrasting movement together, at home!

Vocal Play with Young Babies

Kindermusik for Babies 0-12 Months / Cuddle & Bounce

Focus - VOCAL PLAY

Learning to imitate actions & sounds will be essential to baby's overall development, but especially to her language development.  Research shows that much of baby's early language learning happens through imitating adult facial expressions and lip movements.  Allow baby to see your lips, and remember to exaggerate your mouth movements as you talk and interact with baby. 

On our blog - have fun turning bath time in to vocal play time!

Kindermusik@Home:

• Log in to your Kindermusik @ Home account, and sign with baby! 
• Then, engage baby's senses with textures and sounds!  Can you add some voice sounds to go with each object?  If the object correlates with an animal, what sound does that animal make?  Can you make that with your voice?  How does baby react? 
• Turn on a favorite track from your home CD, and fly baby around! 

Music Inspires Art - Try it at home!

The Arts can be a tool to help children recognize and express emotions. Music inspires a variety of feelings in the listener and sometimes those feelings can be expressed through yet another art form, such as art, dance, drama, or writing. Try this game at home or in the classroom to support social-emotional development and to support the concept of "symbols" that represent "sound" graphically.

Music Game: “See the Music”

Listen to six different pieces of music, each paired with a piece of art. Then, can you match them back up again?

Here are some fun ways to extend the learning of this game:

• After playing the game a few times, point to some of the paintings and ask children to verbally describe the type of music that each painting represents. (Would the music be loud/soft? Fast/slow? What kinds of instruments might make the music?)
• Play the musical samples from this game, without the visuals. Encourage children to be inspired, and away from the screen, to draw, write, paint, dance, or enjoy any other art form while listening! How does their artistic expression change if the music changes?
• Talk with children about how they feel when they listen to each piece of music. Can they use feelingwords (not just sound words or visual words) to describe what they’re hearing?
• Put on some brand-new music, of your choice, and create art in response to them.

Republished with permission from Minds On Music Blog by Kindermusik International.

http://www.kindermusik.com/mindsonmusic/kindermusik/let-music-draw-out-your-emotions-literally/