Check out OPENHOUSE INFO
January 29, 2010 at 10:33 pm | In Kindermusik | Leave a CommentTitle: OPENHOUSE INFO for our Online Open House
Link: file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/HP_Owner/My%20Documents/My%20Web%20Sites/kindermusikofclayton/OPENHOUSEANNOUNCEMENT.htm
NEW Kindermusik Semester Classes Register NOW!
January 25, 2010 at 8:44 pm | In Babies, Kindermusik | Leave a CommentTags: Clayton, kindermusic, Kindermusik, Left Brain, Music, Music and Movement, Parenting, Preschool, Riverwood, Whole Brain, Whole Child
Class: Village Cock-a-doodle-MOO! and Dew Drops
REGISTER TODAY!
Time: Monday at 9:15am
Class Meets: February 1 , 2010
Time: Thursday at 10:15am
Class Meets: February 4 , 2010
Cock-a-doodle-MOO! - Cock-a-doodle-MOO! – Hop on the hayride—it’s time to head for the farm! In this class, you will sing songs about the farm, including “Old MacDonald,” “Hayride,” and “Clever Cows.” You’ll engage in rituals and playful activities with your baby, including infant massage, lap bounces, exercise, and quiet time. During the week, you’ll enjoy their At Home Materials, looking through a playful picture book of animals and the sounds they make, as well as a CD of the songs heard in class and an instrument for music-making at home.
DewDrops - DewDrops – Stop and smell the roses—and lily of the valley, and tulips, and pansies. In this class, parents and babies will play and move together to songs about flowers, such as “Jasmine Flower,” “How Does Your Garden Grow?,” and “White Coral Bells.” You’ll also hear traditional Irish music, dance a jig and move to the “Irish Trot.” In your At Home Materials, you’ll will receive a CD of beautifully arranged songs from class, a board book of flowers, and an instrument for music-making at home.
Class: Our Time Away We Go!
Time: Monday at 10:45am
Class Meets: February 1 , 2010
Time: Wednesday at 9:15am
Class Meets: February 3 , 2010
Time: Tuesday at 5:30pm
Class Meets: February 2 , 2010
Away We Go! - Away We Go! – Hop on the train, get in the car, board the plane, and Away We Go! This class focuses on transportation, a favorite topic for toddlers who are on the go, go, go! Sing and play along with favorite songs, such as “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad” and “Wheels on the Bus”. Explore fast and slow, smooth and bumpy, and high and low. Read stories about ways to get around. Shiny Dinah tells the story of a train, and Giddy-Up! has a horse, speedboat, racecar, and more to help you get where you want to go.
Class: Imagine That! Toys I Make, Trips I Take
Time: Monday at 5:30pm
Class Meets: February 1 , 2010
Time: Thursday at 9:00am
Class Meets: February 4 , 2010
Toys I Make, Trips I Take - Toys I Make, Trips I Take – Think of it like taking a course inside your child’s imagination. We’ll use the theme of a toy shop to make our pretend-creations, using rhythm and songs with every imaginary saw, hammer, and nail. The result is building your preschooler’s sense of a sequence of events, which is good for storytelling, as well as making his ideas a reality.
Class: Family Time Here, There, and Everywhere
Time: Thursday at 6:15pm
Class Meets: February 4 , 2010
Time: Friday at 9:15am
Class Meets: February 5 , 2010
Here, There, and Everywhere - Here, There, and Everywhere – In this family-sized version of Kindermusik, the music and activities center around five different family outings: a visit with a friend, an outing at the park, a trip to the city, an afternoon at the aquarium, and a day on the farm. Your At Home Materials include a hand and finger puppets of Wags—a featured character in the two literature books. Plus, two home CDs of music from class, a home activity guide, and two jambourine instruments. Each item has been carefully created to bring out the music—and the learning—in your family. Specially designed to fit the varying ages and learning abilities of your children, this set will help you bring the learning and the music-making home, as well as become a lasting, well-loved favorite of the toy box and book shelf.
Class: Young Child Semester 2
Time: Thursday at 4:15pm
Class Meets: February 4 , 2010
Semester 2 - Semester 2 – Playing simple musical patterns and songs on the featured instrument from the first session—the glockenspiel—is a central focus this semester. While learning to sing a melody, and then play the pattern on the glockenspiel, we’ll delve deeper into the understanding of musical concepts such as piano and forte through orchestra-style music such as the William Tell Overture and Peter and the Wolf. Music appreciation and understanding continues with a complete introduction to the instruments—and the families in which they’re grouped—of the orchestra.
Happy New Year to you and yours!
January 1, 2010 at 8:33 am | In Kindermusik | Leave a CommentTags: Happy New Year 2010
Some might say good riddance to the year we leave behind. 2009 was a difficult year, but guess what?! We Survived! Yes and now we head into a new year with hope renewed and a clean slate to write upon!
Check out WinterSpring 2010 Schedule
November 16, 2009 at 10:06 pm | In Kindermusik | Leave a CommentTitle: WinterSpring 2010 Schedule
Link: http://gotaf.socialtwist.com/redirect?l=-302732930593428521121
Early Registration through December 19th, $10.00 holds your spot!
Want to win a FREE Semester of Kindermusik?
October 24, 2009 at 7:11 pm | In Kindermusik | Leave a CommentTags: Competition, Contest, FREE Semester of Kindermusik, Itsy Bitsy Spider, kindermusic, Kindermusik, Kindermusik International, Molly McGinn, music and movement classes, The Kindermusik Experience, Video, Youtube

Kindermusik International is sponsoring a competition to help you win a FREE Semester of Kindermusik! Just go to the link here and follow the instructions to download our special Itsy Bitsy Spider MP3 by Molly McGinn and make a video of your special moves to the song… To compete you will join ‘The Kindermusik Experience’ group on You Tube and download your video!
Re-visiting the seven benefits of music education
October 9, 2009 at 6:51 pm | In Aimee Carter, Kindermusik | Leave a CommentTags: Kindermusic of Clayton, KINDERMUSIK OF CLAYTON

Mom and Baby making music!
Recently this article about the seven benefits of music education was brought to my attention again by Fellow Kindermusik educator Aimee Carter. Aimee shared, “I found it interesting, because it was not talking specifically about private music study or school age children. As a matter of fact, I see these same benefits every week in my Kindermusik classroom, even when it’s full of little babies! Music education enhances a child’s intelligence, academic success, social skills, and even physical fitness.” Aimee is right and this is so true of my Kindermusik classes too!
Here are the seven surprising benefits of music education:
Music boosts brain power.
Music leads to literacy skills.
Music adds to a child’s understanding of math.
Music helps children live in harmony with others.
Music is active.
Singing helps children stay strong.
Music supports self-expression.
Please take a minute to read the full article here.
See my previous post here.
From Itsy Bitsy Spider… To Charlotte’s Web Music’s Impact on Literacy and Learning is Monumental!
October 9, 2009 at 6:30 pm | In Children's Music, FUN, Kindermusik, Language, Music, School Readiness, Singing, Whole Body, Whole Brain, Whole Child, emergent literacy | Leave a Comment
Steve Blunt with children
Recently I received a link to an article by Steve Blunt. (Thank you Merri!) He was writing on the importance of Music to Literacy and what he had to say hit the nail square on the head! I have seen time and again this same phenomenon in my Kindermusik classes.
Steve Blunt is an award-winning kids’ musician from New Hampshire. A former middle-school English teacher, Steve now works as a music teacher and performer. His music gets kids up and dancing and he always encourages the adults to sing along. In this article he discusses the importance of music in the classroom. Music is both fun AND educational!
“If we value literacy—speaking, listening, reading, and writing—then we should acknowledge that age-appropriate musical activity lays a foundation for subsequent language development.”
Read more here.
Children under 3 can’t learn action words from TV — unless an adult helps says an article in the latest Edition of Earlychildhood NEWSlink
September 19, 2009 at 2:08 am | In Kindermusik | Leave a CommentTags: Children learning from video or TV, Early Childhood Newslink, Kinder Music, kindermusic, Kindermusik, literacy

In the latest edition of Earlychildhood NEWSlink an article summarizing a study by researchers at Temple University and the University of Delaware states, “American infants and toddlers watch TV an average of two hours a day, and much of the programming is billed as educational. A new study finds that children under age 3 learn less from these videos than we might think — unless there’s an adult present to interact with them and support their learning.
The study, by researchers at Temple University and the University of Delaware, can be found in the September/October 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.
The researchers studied children who ranged in age from 30 to 42 months to explore whether they could learn the names of actions (verbs) from videos. The names of verbs are generally harder for children to learn than names of objects. Yet verb learning is critical because verbs are the centerpiece of sentences, the glue that holds the words together…” (read more here).
Again, we see a study that points to the importance and effectiveness of interaction with our children, from the youngest ages. It is so important parents to be a part of what your young child is learning. You are your child’s most important teacher and in the Kindermusik classroom you are affirmed as that. The teacher is the facilitator and your teacher so that you may ‘teach’ your child by your involvement. “Loving your child is what it’s all about!” Learn more here!
How Arts Training Improves Attention and Cognition in an article on The Dana Foundation website.
September 17, 2009 at 7:02 pm | In Brain Development, Children's Music, Delopmental Stages, Kindermusik, Music, Whole Body, Whole Brain, Whole Child | 1 CommentTags: Arts Education, Arts Training, Attention Span, Brenda Patoine, Cognition, Michael I. Posner, Ph.D., the Dana Foundation
Merri Williams, fellow Kindermusik Educator and friend shared this very interesting article and I must do the same!
How Arts Training Improves Attention and Cognition
By Michael I. Posner, Ph.D., and Brenda Patoine
Does education in the arts transfer to seemingly unrelated cognitive abilities? Researchers are finding evidence that it does. Michael Posner argues that when children find an art form that sustains their interest, the subsequent strengthening of their brains’ attention networks can improve cognition more broadly.
If there were a surefire way to improve your brain, would you try it? Judging by the abundance of products, programs and pills that claim to offer “cognitive enhancement,” many people are lining up for just such quick brain fixes. Recent research offers a possibility with much better, science-based support: that focused training in any of the arts—such as music, dance or theater—strengthens the brain’s attention system, which in turn can improve cognition more generally. Furthermore, this strengthening likely helps explain the effects of arts training on the brain and cognitive performance that have been reported in several scientific studies, such as those presented in May 2009 at a neuroeducation summit at Johns Hopkins University (co-sponsored by the Dana Foundation). (read more)
Music Education promotes Readiness…
September 11, 2009 at 9:18 pm | In Kindermusik | Leave a Comment
Playing the resonator bars.
In a report from researchers at the FPG Child Development Institute in Chapel Hill, NC, Yazejian and Peisner-Feinberg (2002) state:
Music and movement experiences are often viewed as secondary to activities and material linked more directly with the development of language and cognitive skills — skills associated with conventional definitions of school readiness. Recent research, however, suggests that music and movement experience can promote these broader developmental competencies as well.
Research is now establishing the link between music education and school readiness, defined by the National Education Goals Panel across the following developmental domains:
1. Physical Well-Being and Motor Development – As some of childhood’s most active learning, music and movement activities promote fine motor skills as found in finger games, large motor skills as in dancing and marching to music, as well as the sensorimotor, eye-hand coordination skills required in playing small instruments.
2. Social-Emotional Development … (read more)
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