Conscious listening.

Every Kindermusik day I help children and adults with conscious listening skills. Today in our Village class (newborn to 18months) we modeled wonder and attentiveness when listening to something specific. Our faces held wonder and our bodies were still as we listened. The babies right away were curious! They "froze" wide-eyed. After hearing the recording of the squirrel, bee, and owl we then mimicked the sounds vocally. If we continue to do this then the children will imitate us both with acute listening skills and with vocal play. It's a big job to help our brains to know exactly what to listen to and what to filter out......listen to this informative (5 minute) talk about listening:

Mommy and Me class in Asheville!

Kindermusik Village: a precious moment.
Newborn to 18 months and their adult.
Tuesday October 13 at 9:30
North on Merrimon, under the Atlanta Bread Co.
RSVP 253-4000 or singandtwirl@gmail.com

Last week in our Village class we had baby drummers echo a pattern, a no longer clingy nine month old sing "Caw" like a crow, a 5 month old respond to a descending vocal line, and many adults overwhelmed by a loving moment with their babies.

Meet other first time moms, parents of 2nd and 3rd children, and families of twins and triplets!

You have to try it to believe it.

Come.

"How do you do?"

In our little baby class (Kindermusik Village) we've been doing a little greeting ritual. The grown ups are holding the babies while we meet, greet and shake hands with one another. The babies are taking their job seriously: they study all the adult faces. You can almost hear them think as they look from mommy to mommy's friend or from mommy to a stranger. "So this is what it looks like when mommy greets her good friend." "And this is what she looks like when she is greeting someone new!" Some classes are lucky enough to have daddies to study.

We aren't born knowing how to make these facial expressions nor are we born knowing how to read them!

Did you know the FBI actually has to train their agents in face reading? It's really important. How good are you at reading your spouse's facial expressions?

In our culture today babies are generally too far away from the adults faces to do their studying. They are in the stroller, or the car seat, or the little seat on the grocery cart staring up at the lights. Sling babies have an advantage. They are right there soaking it all in.

I'd love to share more child development tidbits with families:
Free Kindermusik Village demo class for babies
Tuesday 9:30 9/29.
singandtwirl@gmail.com

Reserve your spot.

Music Class for the BABIES!!!

Next Tuesday, September 29 @ 9:30 am, we will be offering a free music & movement class for babies! Yvette Odell, our Kindermusik director, will be leading a free class from our Village Program at our North location under Atlanta Bread Company on Merrimon Ave. in Asheville. (Newborn-18mos.)

More information about the Village program:

Who knew that you would find gazing into your baby’s eyes the most exciting part of your day? In Kindermusik, we understand how precious this time is with your little one. That’s why Kindermusik created Village.

In a Kindermusik Village class, we take those special bonding moments between you and your baby and add in a unique blend of musical learning activities that stimulate and engage all of the senses. Your educator will teach you how to encourage your baby’s learning through vocal play, object exploration, instruments, and creative movement.

What you’ll experience in class:

• Variety of music. Musical diversity builds strong neural networks in a baby’s forming mind, which is why each Kindermusik semester contains an array of styles, sounds, and genres.
• Instrument play. Age-appropriate experiences with child-safe instruments enhances a sense of rhythm and steady beat, develops a keen awareness of the distinguishing qualities of sound, and encourages spontaneity and creativity.
• Dance. A classroom full of baby and adult pairs dancing together helps a little body develop the muscle strength needed to crawl and walk and helps a little heart to fall in love with the sheer joy of responding to music.
• Together time. A Kindermusik class is truly the essence of “quality time,” offering you a place to create special memories with your child, gain new insights into your child’s development, and nurture your child’s natural love of music.
• Expert advice. A Kindermusik educator explains “what-to-watch-for” every step of the way and how each activity enhances your child’s complete development
• Learning continues at home. With the home materials, the learning continues at home with your child’s best teacher—you!

Enrollment includes:

• Developmentally appropriate curriculum for parents and babies, ages newborn to 18 months
• 16-week semester with two different, eight week themes (length may vary by location)
• Weekly 45-minute class that includes new and unique parent and baby activities
• Two sets of At Home Materials—one for each mini-theme—each including a CD of music from class, literature board book, age-appropriate instrument, and art banner
• You’ll learn over 30 songs, lullabies, and nursery rhymes and play over 200 activities together by the semester’s end.

Kindermusik: A Head Start For Children - Mom TV

Kindermusik: A Head Start For Children

This video mentions that Kindermusik is a great program for 7 year olds down to 3 months but I've actually had babies as young as 5 weeks in my classes. I believe it's never too early to start! Babies this young are very attuned to loving stimulation through visual, auditory, touch and vestibular senses. Kindermusik is perfect! When my babies were tiny it was so hard to WAIT for them to be old enough! You're not too early!

I'm having some free "try-it" classes on the 1st of September at both the north Asheville and Arden locations. Email me to be invited so you can experience it with your little one.

Yvette

Preliteracy skills:

Here's more that I found following some links on the Puckett Institute site about working with infants on preliteracy skills. It's another affirmation for what we do in our Kindermusik classes!
Preliteracy Development

The period of development from birth to approximately
12–15 months of age includes a child’s acquisition
of a number of important communication and literacyrelated
skills, including, but not limited to, joint attention,
nonverbal (gestural) communication, vocalizations (cooing
and babbling), speech and language perception, and
phoneme speech stem acquisition. Schickedanz (1999), in
her book Much More than the ABCs, describes looking and
recognizing, picture recognition and comprehension, book
handling and play, and child behavior during story reading
as some of the preliteracy behavior that infants master
on their way to becoming literate. The kinds of activities
that are the contexts for preliteracy development include,
but are not limited to, parent/child lap games, singing to
infants, word play, and touching and talking (Armbruster,
Lehr, & Osborn, 2003b; Parlakian, 2003).

From:
Framework for Developing Evidence-Based
Early Literacy Learning Practices
Carl J. Dunst
Carol M. Trivette
Tracy Masiello
Nicole Roper
Anya Robyak

Kindermusik Village

In our Kindermusik Village I've talked about what Jane Healey has called the "contingent response". It's an element that does not exist when a child is seated at a video...no matter how wonderful or educational you might think that Baby Einstein video is.

So what is a "contingent response"?

When you read a board book to your 6 month old she pats the picture of the doggy or reaches out to chew on the corner of the book. Your response of either delight, naming the doggy or concern, by slipping your fingers between the book and her mouth, alerts your child to a perfect learning moment. She may be intrigued by your reaction and she'd like to know if it's related to her action so she repeats the tapping or drawing the book to her mouth. You react again and maybe even make eye contact. She'll probably pick up immediately on cues relayed by your eye contact and body language.

Here's a link to a brochure that I found that describes this contingent response as a social response and explains using games to heighten a baby's awareness of cause and effect.

As I read about the games on page 2 of this brochure I am reminded about our stop and go songs where we waited for the child to signal for us to sing again! Such good games!

Here's the link to the Puckett Institute's brochre. I found the Puckett Institute very interesting too. I'm proud to know they are in Asheville!

Kindermusik Village Class Home activities:

Below is the link for the new "Rhythm of My Day" theme.

This is week #3 and the home activity is about creating and weaving rituals into your day. The suggestion is one I love: When Daddy comes home sing "Hey Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. Hey Daddy, Daddy-O..." (tune: Hey Lolly) Do that for the older siblings coming home from school or in the morning when you first wake up! Other times for rituals would be diaper changing time, meal time, bath time, story time...etc. These wonderful rituals convey security and deep love between child and adults and siblings.

Becky Bailey (author of Conscious Discipline) describes the important basic elements of a loving ritual:
1. touch
2. eye contact
3. your presence
4. playfulness

Here's a perfect example for a "loving ritual" as we did today in our Saturday (9:15) Kindermusik Village class:

Wash the dishes. (rub baby's tummy)
Dry the dishes. (rub baby's back)
Ring the bell for tea. (tweak nose or push belly button and add sound effects!)
Three good wishes and three good kisses (rock, tap, or someway keep the beat)
I will give to thee. (Give the kisses!)

Go here to find out the home activities for every week:

http://www.kindermusikeducators.com/Lounge/Rhythm-Home%20Journal.pdf

If you are not enrolled in one of our Kindermusik classes I invite you to email me or call the Arts Center to visit a class this week!! Do come and see the magic for yourself.

Wheeeee!!!! Again, again!!!!!!

I've been reminding the moms in my Kindermusik Village class that the more movement you incorporate into our activities the more the "smile-o-meter" shows you're doing it right!















And then they groan "Oh, what a WORKOUT! (Hey, getting 2 classes for the price of one!)

But I must remind everyone to BE CAREFULL!!! Do only what you CAN do. If you hurt your back swinging them around then what???? Well, then you're absolutely no fun at all, that's what!

So, as I often do on my ride home, I got to thinking about the "Take care of yourself" concept. It's been a while since I've mentioned it here at Kindermusik at the Asheville Arts Center.

Parent lecture #454889
Take care of yourself first. Here's my analogy: You are on the airplane ready for take off and the flight attendant says "If the oxygen mask drops down in front of you be sure to fasten it securely on yourself before attending to others". Ever wonder why? Ever wonder how many needy people you could supply oxygen to before passing out yourself? That's what many, many mothers are doing everyday.

Please, please take care of yourself first because:

Your baby needs a happy mom. Your baby needs a happy dad.
I, _______________________promise to take care of myself everyday.

now go do it.........

Are You With Me?

"Children have short attention spans."

Do you agree? There is a study done where the researcher rolled a ball with an 11 month old child. They rolled the ball back and forth 180 times joyfully. The child continued to roll the ball but the excitement had begun to wane. I can see where an adult would have trouble holding their attention span on task to roll a ball 180 times! Truth is if it is a child's quest to roll this ball then the attention span will be long. If it is the adgenda of the adult the child will probably roll it 3 or 4 times! This might have something to do with choice. Anytime I do something where I have little choice in the matter my attention span is minuscule! (I should be doing taxes and FAFSA right now!)

This week in our Kindermusik Village class we are suggesting families explore repetition and attention span as a home activity. The attention span will be heightened by adding slight variations. Eye contact is always paramont whenever you are interacting. Your loving eyes will keep your baby engaged joyfully!

Here's a link so you can download all the home activities for Hickory Dickory Tickle and Bounce --that's our theme right now. We are on lesson 3.

Have fun.
Yvette

Piccolo, just a little....

Here's a little bit for the very little.
These two darling little girls; Addison and Samantha! How much fun we had playing piccolo and drums together in class. Thanks Shelley for the picture! My big girls are ooooohing and ahhhhhing.