Dear Our Time Parent:
Your home is likely to be filled with more active dog play this week! “Roll over, Rover!” Children love to move–and there’s a reason for this. According to creative dance expert Anne Green Gilbert, “Movement is key to learning! Our brains fully develop through movement activities such as crawling, rolling, turning, walking, skipping, reaching, swinging and much more! The brain has a plan for development that involves specific and intensive motor activities to make full use of our complicated nervous system.”* And when movement is paired with rhythmic and musical concepts, the learning is even stronger.
As we continue to develop the animal theme of Fiddle-dee-dee, you will find that the Kindermusik experience offers infinite opportunities for your child to “play” through the combination of music and movement. Extend this play by engaging your child in some of the play ideas suggested in your Home Activity Book, for example, Who Is In the Doghouse? found on page 5. Enjoy!
*“Movement and Music: The Keys to Learning,” by Anne Green Gilbert
INVITE A FRIEND! Parents, invite a friend and child to join us in class next week. Should they choose to enroll in our class, I will extend a “thank you” to you through a $10 reduction in your next payment installment. [or next semester’s tuition.]
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Kindermusik’s Foundations of Learning - some of the benefits your child received from today’s activities are:
Scaffolding: Scaffolding is an interactive learning process between adult and child. The adult observes the child’s play ideas, then gently guides and supports the child’s learning by building on what the child already is able to do. Ideally, the adult with begin by meeting the child where he is – by copying his play idea, for example. Then the adult makes a slight variation on the activity, providing appropriate challenges to lead the child to new levels of learning.
Steady Beat: The most fundamental property of music is beat, the underlying, unchanging, repeating pulse. Feeling and moving to a steady beat develops a sense of time and the ability to organize and organize and coordinate movements within time.
Circle Songs and Community:
“Historically, community has meant the overall social context in which people live out their lives…Community remains central to children’s social and emotional development.” Circles songs such as this help to establish a secure sense of community in the Kindermusik Classroom.
-Fostering Children’s Social Competence: The Teacher’s Role, by Lilian G. Katz and Diane E. McClellan
