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In a world full of noise and with little time for reflection or introspection, helping children experience the grace that music can impart is a noble and extremely challenging task. It seems in today's society things must be measured to ensure their value. If early childhood music experience is to be deemed 'worthy' we must be able to say "Music does all of this for the young child and here's the scientific evidence to back it up.' In recent years, musicians and researchers have come together to try and quantify just what it is that music does for the developing child. Volumes of research are now available about how musical experience in early childhood benefits overall child development, enhances reading and mathematical skills, supports language development, increases spatial awareness, enhances motor skills, and nurtures high level reasoning skills. However it is still the grace and inner awareness of beauty that places music above so many other disciplines.

When properly approached, music plays a significant role in the development of sensitive human beings who are able to to reason intelligently and with compassion. That is to say, despite all of the concrete evidence that music increases our capacity to think and perform at higher levels, it is the 'soul' of music that in the end, makes a difference in human behavior.

Even 2 days into school our lives are busy and scheduled and I appreciate and protect the time I have to listen to music with my kids.Singing on the way to school, singing during homework, humming them to sleep. Music has a way to calm and touch their souls in a way ordinary instruction can not. Kindermusik gives us the chance to push the noise of every day life away and enjoy something together. You will find the benefits of Kindermusik to be much more far reaching than initially expected. Here are just a few:

Singing and Vocal Development

Movement (fine and gross motor skills through patterned movement, body awareness and ensemble preparation)

Listening

Exploring and Playing musical instruments

Ensemble Development

Reading and Writing Music

Musical Concepts and Focus

Creativity

Self Confidence and Self Image

Now is the time to register. Classes start in just a few days!

Classes start in 2 Weeks!

Enroll today for early bird discounts!!

The Whole Child

Kindermusik provides a whole child approach to music education. Children move and sing, play musical games, learn about music in other cultures, talk about and listen to the instruments of the orchestra, develop their discriminative listening skills, build self-esteem through group interaction and music making, begin to read and write basic musical notation and much more.

I often get calls from eager parents, ready to spend gobs of money on private music lessons for their 3-, 4- and 5-year olds. I first ask them, how are the children’s fine motor skills? Are they reading? How big are their hands? Are they ready to practice at least 20-30 minutes each day? By the time children complete a 2-year Kindermusik class, they have played a pre-keyboard instrument, a simple string instrument and a wind instrument. They are eager to pursue private lessons and have more staying power!

When you choose a music program, make sure it is compatible with you and your child. Be prepared to be an active participant and supporter of your child’s music experience. It could be the best investment you ever make.

Music turns kids on. So turn it up!

A Workout for your Brain

I was doing some research about the benefits of music study today and ran across an article about the effects of music study on the brain. I found the article interesting because of the following quote: “The effect of music training suggests that, akin to physical exercise and its impact on body fitness, music is a resource that tones the brain for auditory fitness and thus requires society to re-examine the role of music in shaping individual development.”

Simply put, music is great exercise for the brain, particularly in those areas which affect listening, reasoning, and language skills. Parents who expose their children to musical activities, such as our Kindermusik classes, are giving their children an early advantage for enhanced development and academic success. The developmental foundation that is established in these young minds will increase memory function, listening skills, and creative learning.

You can read more by clicking HERE.

Enroll Now!

Just click on the purple button to your right. Register before August 25th for a $10 discount off any class! I also have a refer a friend discount of $5 and a multiple sibling discount!

6 Reasons for Early Music Experiences

If you think that music and movement classes for little children are just fluff, an article written by Autumn L. Zander in the Aug-Sep 2010 issue of American Music Teacher will make you think again. According to Ms. Zander, early childhood music classes (like Kindermusik!) will:

1. Expose children to basic music fundamentals that will help them be successful when pursuing private lessons later

2. Introduce social skills

3. Ease children into a nurturing learning environment

4. Promote peer interaction in a setting in which they share, listen to others, and support their friends

5. Help children discover that different learning styles abound

6. Make music – and music lessons – a routine priority in their schedule, now and in the future.

Ms. Zander stresses, “Caregivers play an enormous role in the support and commitment needed for children to succeed in private lessons. The musical foundation that teachers strive to introduce and create is nearly impossible to accomplish without the caregiver’s support. From the first day of classes, the joy of creating music in a classroom, as many of my own families share with me, continues on the car ride home, in line at the grocery store, at the park, before bed time … everywhere. What a wonderful foundation to build upon–one in which music is a vibrant and active part of a family’s daily life.”