Next Semester in the Kindermusik Young Child 2 class we will learn about the brass, string and wood wind families of the orchestra. Here's an audio of the brass and percussion families. You can tell they have fun when they make music! Makes you want to dance.
Wee fish ewe a mare egrets moose!
Wee fish ewe a mare egrets moose!
Wee fish ewe a mare egrets moose,
Panda hippo gnu deer!
This is to get back at some of the kids who've sung strange versions of Jingle Bells and We Three Kings....
Who teaches them those songs anyway!
OK, don't tell me the answer to that one.
Happy New Year.
Yvette
Dear Families, You mean so much to us. We really do love your children and respect that you have chosen to share them with us. Thank you from the bottoms of our hearts.
How amazing that Beethoven composed his last and most monumental symphony at a time when he was completely deaf. He never heard a single note of his 9th Symphony (in which the chorus sings the famous "Ode to Joy"). Friends had to turn him around from conducting so that he could see the applause. When I tell this story to my Kindermusik Young Child students they are amazed. Then we do a little experiment. We sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star out loud first then silently. The children's eyes widen as they tell me they COULD hear it inside their head! Here's lot's more about Beethoven for the curious: www.lvbeethoven.com
Happy Birthday to one of my favorite composers.
It's amazing that music is the common tie in humor, games, and dances that are understood and shared around the world....There may be varying complexities of rhythms and tonalities and timbres but there are elements that are common world wide. That's why when we laugh and then laugh again when we recognize the next tune. This sharing brings us together...all the 4 corners of the globe. Reminds me too of the old M*A*S*H* TV series (details are foggy) where the musician taught the Vietnamese to play Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. I think that was the first time I cried for a TV show...to think that music was a language, a healing language, that can be understood by everyone. Everyone.
Everyone.
God has done great things for us. Filled us with laughter and music. (Psalm 126)
Peace,Yvette
Have you re-enrolled for Spring classes yet? https://holland.kindermusik.net Children thrive in the routine. The following study regarding the benefits of a long-term Kindermusik education affirms your choice to continue the experience for more than just fun!! Your children are worth it: read on!
Excerpts from the following article are courtesy of Lori Burkhardt. The entire article can be read here.
*****
Repeated, not sporadic enrollment makes all the difference.
Beth Frook ~ Little Hands Kindermusik, Clifton, VA www.littlehands.com
Earlier this year (2005), Beth Frook shared a granddaddy of a Foundations of Learning (FOLs) in her Kindermusik class. A local university had recently conducted a study on 3-and-5-year old children in her program titled “The Effects of Kindermusik on Behavioral Self-Regulation in Early Childhood.” *See editor’s note at the bottom of this column.
It proved what Beth—and many other Kindermusik Educators—already knew:
The longer you stay in Kindermusik, the better.
Specifically, the study showed:
“Children currently enrolled in Kindermusik showed higher levels of self-control than those never enrolled and those previously enrolled. This suggests that in order for children to reap the benefit of increased self-control as a result of Kindermusik participation, it is important to have repeated and recent Kindermusik experiences and remain enrolled in the program.”
“Four-year-old children who had been exposed to Kindermusik for longer periods of time are better off in terms of self-control—namely a child’s ability to plan, guide, and control their own behavior—than similar children with less Kindermusik history.”
“These experiences, stop-go, high-low, fast-slow, short-long, and loud-soft, whereby children’s motor behavior is guided by the music, appear to be good exercise for young children’s emerging self-regulatory skills.”
Below, Beth shares her reaction to the study and the role that research plays in her Kindermusik classes.
Editor’s note:
Study results were made available to Kindermusik in May, 2005. The study was conducted by Adam Winsler Ph.D and graduate student Lesley Ducenne in the Department of Psychology at George Mason University.
The 15-month study included 91 children between the ages of 3 and 5 who were split into three groups: 23 students currently enrolled in Kindermusik, 19 students previously enrolled in Kindermusik, and 49 students of similar family backgrounds from local preschools who had never had Kindermusik.
The children were observed doing a variety of tasks that required self-control such as slowing down their motor behavior, delaying their gratification, refraining from touching attractive but forbidden toys, quietly whispering, and compliance with instructions to initiate or stop certain behaviors. Parents also completed surveys.
The study, supervised by Adam Winsler, Ph.D, Applied Developmental Psychology in the Department of Psychology at George Mason University, will likely be presented at national conferences and published later this year.
Yvette's comment: I immediately think of our Imagine That! classes where we have been asking children to jump to musical cues that they must wait for. We did this with "Hop To It" and also "Weggis Dance" where we change from staccato jumping to legato swaying. Yes we really do work them hard....their whole entire bodies from their ears to their toes! Imagine That!
Yesterday I was telling the parents in my classes about early music education being a strong connection in the processing of language in adults. "Listen" to THIS:
Priscilla Dunstan was recently featured on the Oprah Winfrey show and talked about the language babies use to let you know they're hungry, uncomfortable, have lower gas, need to burp, or simply, are sleepy.You can watch the video here.
The musical connection: (via http://www.dunstanbaby.com/)"Already an exceptional violinist by the age five, [Priscilla] could hear a piece by Mozart once, then play it back in its entirety, note for note. Her father, Director of the Educational Testing Centre at the University of New South Wales, found that his young daughter had an eidetic memory - a rare photographic memory for sound."During her teenage years Priscilla toured throughout Europe and Australia as an accomplished concert violinist. Priscilla then spent more than 10 years exploring the world of opera, where her talent as a mezzo-soprano deepened her understanding of sound produced by the human voice."When Priscilla gave birth to her son Tomas, her instincts as a mother and musician led her to believe that a baby’s cries had to be something more than just random sounds. Noting combinations of sounds in a journal, Priscilla explored various settling techniques and observed Tom’s reactions. Eventually she was able to recognize patterns, and identify how specific cries had a distinct need attached to them."
Once you watch the video you will see that you too can tell the differences easily! Priscilla has taught us to listen on purpose! Don't we do that in every Kindermusik class from newborns to the Young Child classes!?
Thanks Molly McGinn! You are the very spirit of Kindermusik.
"http://www2.oprah.com/tows/slide/200611/20061113/slide_20061113_350_101.jhtml
Science is always trying to justify music! Why do we humans need music? This Stanford research shows that people who played musical instruments as children process spoken language faster and more accurately than their non-musical counterparts as adults. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2005-11-17-music-training-language_x.htmThey suggest that many children who become poor readers have trouble making auditory distinctions. Auditory discrimination is our work and our play in Kindermusik!
Hello Friends! We're high-stepping out into the cyberworld! I'm posting a video clip of a tiny taste of what our Kindermusik Partnership Conference was like. Hope you enjoy it. It was surely a wild few days and so much fun. In this video you'll see Benjamin Zander of the Boston Philharmonic give a cello lesson (I recommend his book: The Art of Possibility). and Arthur Josheph gives us a voice lesson! He is the loving voice recalling memories on your Dream Pillow Village CD. And the founder of Kindermusik, Dan Pratt is at the very end of the video. His voice sings Funiculi Funicula in the Hurry Home Little Kittens book of the Imagine That! CD. He also recorded the Tailor and the Mouse on the Fiddle Dee Dee CD which is the theme for next semester Our Time.
And that reminds me: The new semester is online at holland.kindermusik.net! You can take care of registering online and have all that out of the way before the holidays send us all into a flurry!
Love from Yvette at Kindermusik of Holland
