Friday, May 9, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Summer Adventures!
Kindermusik Adventures draws on the child's natural curiosity and nurtures it to support each child's creative potential. Using an integrated approach with music, movement, storytelling and, for the upper ages, pretend play, drama, and art, Adventures stimulates imagination, spontaneity, curiosity and a love of music.Enroll now!
513-232-5713 or http://kindermusikbythehalfnotes.kindermusik.net/
Peekaboo, I Love You! Age: newborn - 18 months
Thursdays 6:00 - 6:45 p.m. May 29 - June 26
Saturdays 9:45 - 10:30 a.m. May 31 – June 28
Thursdays 6:00 - 6:45 p.m. July 31 - August 28
More than just a curious story, Mother Goose games like peek-a-boo help your baby understand language. Uncover more ways to say "I love you" using American Sign Language, soap bubbles, and parent-baby dances. Plus, meet other families in the community and learn how music improves the child development process. Home Materials include: Book, CD, Duck Wash Mitt, Baby Duck Gertie Ball, and Poster.
Creatures at the Ocean Age: 1.5 - 3 years
Mondays 10:00-10:45 a.m. June 2 – 30
Thursdays 6:00 - 6:45 p.m. May 29 – June 26
Mondays 10:00-10:45 a.m. June 2 – 30Thursdays 6:00 - 6:45 p.m. May 29 – June 26
Sing sailor songs and head to the beach! We're sure to find sand in our sandals, fish in the sea, the wind and waves, and maybe even a boat or two! Home Materials include: CD, Seashell Castanet, Story card set and Picture Folder set.
Zoo Train! Age: 1.5 - 3 years
Mon, Wed, Fri 10:30 – 11:15 a.m. July 16 – July 25
Toddlers and trains make a natural match—always on the move. Tag along this summer with a traveling zoo train! Home Materials include: Book, CD, Animal Shaker, and Poster.
Confetti Days! Age: 3-5 years
Tues & Thurs 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. June 10 – 24
Let's have a party! From clowns to carousels, puppets to parades, monkeys to marching bands, balloons to bicycles, your child will have fun just being a kid. Home Materials include: CD, pair of confetti bells, story kit and picture folder set.
Around the World Age: 5-7 years
Mon - Fri 12:30 - 2:00 p.m. July 21 - 25
Take an imaginary trip—exploring the exotic cultures of Germany, Japan, Africa, England, and Mexico. Lots of travel fun! Home Materials include: CD, Arts & Craft materials, Picture Folder set, and Travel Bag.
=> New this summer! Check out our Putumayo World Playground for our older Explorers! Tell your friends and bring your neighbors!
Explorers World Playground Ages 7.5 - 11 years
Mon – Fri 9:30 – 11:00 a.m. August 11 – 15
We'll visit many exciting and exotic places all around the world: North and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia! We'll discover great multicultural music from Putumayo, make instruments, dance like the natives, learn songs from around the world, and much more! Materials Kit includes: CD, Instrument Pack, Arts & Craft materials, Passport Journal.
Call now register or register online. Early-bird enrollment through May 15. We also offer bring-a-friend and sibling discounts.
513-232-5713 http://kindermusikbythehalfnotes.kindermusik.net/
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Change in Play, Change in Kids
Friends,
Here is an article from NPR's Morning Edition which I found fascinating and might encourage us to re-think all the toys, gadgets, and electronic babysitters we have used to medicate our children. It's a tad long, but a very good read.
Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills
by Alix Spiegel
Morning Edition, February 21, 2008
On October 3, 1955, the Mickey Mouse Club debuted on television. As we all now know, the show quickly became a cultural icon, one of those phenomena that helped define an era.
What is less remembered but equally, if not more, important, is that another transformative cultural event happened that day: The Mattel toy company began advertising a gun called the "Thunder Burp."
I know — who's ever heard of the Thunder Burp?
Well, no one.
The reason the advertisement is significant is because it marked the first time that any toy company had attempted to peddle merchandise on television outside of the Christmas season. Until 1955, ad budgets at toy companies were minuscule, so the only time they could afford to hawk their wares on TV was during Christmas. But then came Mattel and the Thunder Burp, which, according to Howard Chudacoff, a cultural historian at Brown University, was a kind of historical watershed. Almost overnight, children's play became focused, as never before, on things — the toys themselves.
"It's interesting to me that when we talk about play today, the first thing that comes to mind are toys," says Chudacoff. "Whereas when I would think of play in the 19th century, I would think of activity rather than an object."
Chudacoff's recently published history of child's play argues that for most of human history what children did when they played was roam in packs large or small, more or less unsupervised, and engage in freewheeling imaginative play. They were pirates and princesses, aristocrats and action heroes. Basically, says Chudacoff, they spent most of their time doing what looked like nothing much at all.
"They improvised play, whether it was in the outdoors… or whether it was on a street corner or somebody's back yard," Chudacoff says. "They improvised their own play; they regulated their play; they made up their own rules."
But during the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff argues, play changed radically. Instead of spending their time in autonomous shifting make-believe, children were supplied with ever more specific toys for play and predetermined scripts. Essentially, instead of playing pirate with a tree branch they played Star Wars with a toy light saber. Chudacoff calls this the commercialization and co-optation of child's play — a trend which begins to shrink the size of children's imaginative space.
But commercialization isn't the only reason imagination comes under siege. In the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff says, parents became increasingly concerned about safety, and were driven to create play environments that were secure and could not be penetrated by threats of the outside world. Karate classes, gymnastics, summer camps — these create safe environments for children, Chudacoff says. And they also do something more: for middle-class parents increasingly worried about achievement, they offer to enrich a child's mind.
Change in Play, Change in Kids
Clearly the way that children spend their time has changed. Here's the issue: A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids' cognitive and emotional development.
It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.
We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at the National Institute for Early Education Research says, the results were very different.
"Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad."
Sad because self-regulation is incredibly important. Poor executive function is associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime. In fact, good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ. Children who are able to manage their feelings and pay attention are better able to learn. As executive function researcher Laura Berk explains, "Self-regulation predicts effective development in virtually every domain."
The Importance of Self-Regulation
According to Berk, one reason make-believe is such a powerful tool for building self-discipline is because during make-believe, children engage in what's called private speech: They talk to themselves about what they are going to do and how they are going to do it.
"In fact, if we compare preschoolers' activities and the amount of private speech that occurs across them, we find that this self-regulating language is highest during make-believe play," Berk says. "And this type of self-regulating language… has been shown in many studies to be predictive of executive functions."
And it's not just children who use private speech to control themselves. If we look at adult use of private speech, Berk says, "we're often using it to surmount obstacles, to master cognitive and social skills, and to manage our emotions."
Unfortunately, the more structured the play, the more children's private speech declines. Essentially, because children's play is so focused on lessons and leagues, and because kids' toys increasingly inhibit imaginative play, kids aren't getting a chance to practice policing themselves. When they have that opportunity, says Berk, the results are clear: Self-regulation improves.
"One index that researchers, including myself, have used… is the extent to which a child, for example, cleans up independently after a free-choice period in preschool," Berk says. "We find that children who are most effective at complex make-believe play take on that responsibility with… greater willingness, and even will assist others in doing so without teacher prompting."
Despite the evidence of the benefits of imaginative play, however, even in the context of preschool young children's play is in decline. According to Yale psychological researcher Dorothy Singer, teachers and school administrators just don't see the value.
"Because of the testing, and the emphasis now that you have to really pass these tests, teachers are starting earlier and earlier to drill the kids in their basic fundamentals. Play is viewed as unnecessary, a waste of time," Singer says. "I have so many articles that have documented the shortening of free play for children, where the teachers in these schools are using the time for cognitive skills."
It seems that in the rush to give children every advantage — to protect them, to stimulate them, to enrich them — our culture has unwittingly compromised one of the activities that helped children most. All that wasted time was not such a waste after all.
Here is an article from NPR's Morning Edition which I found fascinating and might encourage us to re-think all the toys, gadgets, and electronic babysitters we have used to medicate our children. It's a tad long, but a very good read.
Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills
by Alix Spiegel
Morning Edition, February 21, 2008
On October 3, 1955, the Mickey Mouse Club debuted on television. As we all now know, the show quickly became a cultural icon, one of those phenomena that helped define an era.
What is less remembered but equally, if not more, important, is that another transformative cultural event happened that day: The Mattel toy company began advertising a gun called the "Thunder Burp."
I know — who's ever heard of the Thunder Burp?
Well, no one.
The reason the advertisement is significant is because it marked the first time that any toy company had attempted to peddle merchandise on television outside of the Christmas season. Until 1955, ad budgets at toy companies were minuscule, so the only time they could afford to hawk their wares on TV was during Christmas. But then came Mattel and the Thunder Burp, which, according to Howard Chudacoff, a cultural historian at Brown University, was a kind of historical watershed. Almost overnight, children's play became focused, as never before, on things — the toys themselves.
"It's interesting to me that when we talk about play today, the first thing that comes to mind are toys," says Chudacoff. "Whereas when I would think of play in the 19th century, I would think of activity rather than an object."
Chudacoff's recently published history of child's play argues that for most of human history what children did when they played was roam in packs large or small, more or less unsupervised, and engage in freewheeling imaginative play. They were pirates and princesses, aristocrats and action heroes. Basically, says Chudacoff, they spent most of their time doing what looked like nothing much at all.
"They improvised play, whether it was in the outdoors… or whether it was on a street corner or somebody's back yard," Chudacoff says. "They improvised their own play; they regulated their play; they made up their own rules."
But during the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff argues, play changed radically. Instead of spending their time in autonomous shifting make-believe, children were supplied with ever more specific toys for play and predetermined scripts. Essentially, instead of playing pirate with a tree branch they played Star Wars with a toy light saber. Chudacoff calls this the commercialization and co-optation of child's play — a trend which begins to shrink the size of children's imaginative space.
But commercialization isn't the only reason imagination comes under siege. In the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff says, parents became increasingly concerned about safety, and were driven to create play environments that were secure and could not be penetrated by threats of the outside world. Karate classes, gymnastics, summer camps — these create safe environments for children, Chudacoff says. And they also do something more: for middle-class parents increasingly worried about achievement, they offer to enrich a child's mind.
Change in Play, Change in Kids
Clearly the way that children spend their time has changed. Here's the issue: A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids' cognitive and emotional development.
It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.
We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at the National Institute for Early Education Research says, the results were very different.
"Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad."
Sad because self-regulation is incredibly important. Poor executive function is associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime. In fact, good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ. Children who are able to manage their feelings and pay attention are better able to learn. As executive function researcher Laura Berk explains, "Self-regulation predicts effective development in virtually every domain."
The Importance of Self-Regulation
According to Berk, one reason make-believe is such a powerful tool for building self-discipline is because during make-believe, children engage in what's called private speech: They talk to themselves about what they are going to do and how they are going to do it.
"In fact, if we compare preschoolers' activities and the amount of private speech that occurs across them, we find that this self-regulating language is highest during make-believe play," Berk says. "And this type of self-regulating language… has been shown in many studies to be predictive of executive functions."
And it's not just children who use private speech to control themselves. If we look at adult use of private speech, Berk says, "we're often using it to surmount obstacles, to master cognitive and social skills, and to manage our emotions."
Unfortunately, the more structured the play, the more children's private speech declines. Essentially, because children's play is so focused on lessons and leagues, and because kids' toys increasingly inhibit imaginative play, kids aren't getting a chance to practice policing themselves. When they have that opportunity, says Berk, the results are clear: Self-regulation improves.
"One index that researchers, including myself, have used… is the extent to which a child, for example, cleans up independently after a free-choice period in preschool," Berk says. "We find that children who are most effective at complex make-believe play take on that responsibility with… greater willingness, and even will assist others in doing so without teacher prompting."
Despite the evidence of the benefits of imaginative play, however, even in the context of preschool young children's play is in decline. According to Yale psychological researcher Dorothy Singer, teachers and school administrators just don't see the value.
"Because of the testing, and the emphasis now that you have to really pass these tests, teachers are starting earlier and earlier to drill the kids in their basic fundamentals. Play is viewed as unnecessary, a waste of time," Singer says. "I have so many articles that have documented the shortening of free play for children, where the teachers in these schools are using the time for cognitive skills."
It seems that in the rush to give children every advantage — to protect them, to stimulate them, to enrich them — our culture has unwittingly compromised one of the activities that helped children most. All that wasted time was not such a waste after all.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
What Activities Are Best for Parents to Choose for their Children?
It's always difficult to know what the best and right choices are for your child. With swimming, tumbling, gymnastics, dance, cheerleading, soccer, and a multitude of other activities for parents and children to choose from, what is the single best choice a parent can make? Several experts weigh in:
Music Advocacy’s Top Ten for Everyone *
1. The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania School District analyzed its 1997 dropout rate in terms of students’ musical experience. Students with no ensemble performance experience had a dropout rate of 7.4 percent. Students with one to two years of ensemble experience had a dropout rate of 1 percent, and those with three or more years of performance experience had a dropout rate of 0.0 percent.
Eleanor Chute, “Music and Art Lessons Do More Than Complement Three R’s,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,April 13, 1998.
2. Two research projects have found that music training - specifically piano instruction - can dramatically enhance children’s spatial-temporal reasoning skills, the skills crucial for greater success in subjects like math and science.
Shaw, Grazianow, and Peterson, Neurological Research, March 1999.
3. School leaders affirm that the single most critical factor in sustaining arts education in their schools is the active involvement of influential segments of the community. These community members help shape and implement the policies and programs of the district.
- Gaining the Arts Advantage, The President’s Council on the Arts and Humanities, 1999.
4. Students with band and orchestra experience attend college at a rate twice the national average.
- Bands Across the USA.
5. Music students out-perform non-music on achievement tests in reading and math. Skills such as reading, anticipating, memory, listening, forecasting, recall, and concentration are developed in musical performance, and these skills are valuable to students in math, reading, and science.
- B. Friedman, “An Evaluation of the Achievement in Reading and Arithmetic of Pupils in ElementarySchool Instrumental Music Classes,” Dissertation Abstracts International.
6. One in three of today’s school-aged children will hold an arts-related job at some time in his or her career.
- Education Commission on the States.
7. The College Board, in a publication about college admissions, states, “preparation in the arts will be valuable to college entrants whatever their intended field of study.”
- Academic Preparation for College: What Students Need To Know and Be Able To Do, The CollegeBoard.
8. Music therapists working with Alzheimer’s patients have found that rhythmic interaction or listening to music resulted in decreased agitation, increased focus and concentration, enhanced ability to respond verbally and behaviorally, elimination of demented speech, improved ability to respond to questions, and better social interaction.
- Carol Prickett and Randall Moore, “The Use of Music to Aid Memory of Alzheimer’s Patients,” Journalof Music Therapy, 1991.
9. Medical researchers have reported that subjects lowered both their systolic and diastolic blood pressure as much as five points (mm/Hg) and reduced heart rates by four to five beats per minute following music listening sessions. People with high blood pressure can help keep their blood pressure down by listening to tapes of relaxing low frequency music in the morning and evening.
- Tony Wigram, “The Psychological and Physiological Effects of Low Frequency Sound and Music,” MusicTherapy Perspectives, 1995.
10. A 1997 Gallup Survey on Americans’ attitudes toward music revealed that 89% of respondents believe music helps a child’s overall development, and 93% believe that music is part of a well-rounded education.
- Americans’ Attitudes Toward Music, The Gallup Organization, 1997.
So choose Kindermusik! It's the single best choice a parent can make!
*Children's Music Workshop http://www.childrensmusicworkshop.com/advocacy/index.html
Music Advocacy’s Top Ten for Everyone *
1. The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania School District analyzed its 1997 dropout rate in terms of students’ musical experience. Students with no ensemble performance experience had a dropout rate of 7.4 percent. Students with one to two years of ensemble experience had a dropout rate of 1 percent, and those with three or more years of performance experience had a dropout rate of 0.0 percent.
Eleanor Chute, “Music and Art Lessons Do More Than Complement Three R’s,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,April 13, 1998.
2. Two research projects have found that music training - specifically piano instruction - can dramatically enhance children’s spatial-temporal reasoning skills, the skills crucial for greater success in subjects like math and science.
Shaw, Grazianow, and Peterson, Neurological Research, March 1999.
3. School leaders affirm that the single most critical factor in sustaining arts education in their schools is the active involvement of influential segments of the community. These community members help shape and implement the policies and programs of the district.
- Gaining the Arts Advantage, The President’s Council on the Arts and Humanities, 1999.
4. Students with band and orchestra experience attend college at a rate twice the national average.
- Bands Across the USA.
5. Music students out-perform non-music on achievement tests in reading and math. Skills such as reading, anticipating, memory, listening, forecasting, recall, and concentration are developed in musical performance, and these skills are valuable to students in math, reading, and science.
- B. Friedman, “An Evaluation of the Achievement in Reading and Arithmetic of Pupils in ElementarySchool Instrumental Music Classes,” Dissertation Abstracts International.
6. One in three of today’s school-aged children will hold an arts-related job at some time in his or her career.
- Education Commission on the States.
7. The College Board, in a publication about college admissions, states, “preparation in the arts will be valuable to college entrants whatever their intended field of study.”
- Academic Preparation for College: What Students Need To Know and Be Able To Do, The CollegeBoard.
8. Music therapists working with Alzheimer’s patients have found that rhythmic interaction or listening to music resulted in decreased agitation, increased focus and concentration, enhanced ability to respond verbally and behaviorally, elimination of demented speech, improved ability to respond to questions, and better social interaction.
- Carol Prickett and Randall Moore, “The Use of Music to Aid Memory of Alzheimer’s Patients,” Journalof Music Therapy, 1991.
9. Medical researchers have reported that subjects lowered both their systolic and diastolic blood pressure as much as five points (mm/Hg) and reduced heart rates by four to five beats per minute following music listening sessions. People with high blood pressure can help keep their blood pressure down by listening to tapes of relaxing low frequency music in the morning and evening.
- Tony Wigram, “The Psychological and Physiological Effects of Low Frequency Sound and Music,” MusicTherapy Perspectives, 1995.
10. A 1997 Gallup Survey on Americans’ attitudes toward music revealed that 89% of respondents believe music helps a child’s overall development, and 93% believe that music is part of a well-rounded education.
- Americans’ Attitudes Toward Music, The Gallup Organization, 1997.
So choose Kindermusik! It's the single best choice a parent can make!
*Children's Music Workshop http://www.childrensmusicworkshop.com/advocacy/index.html
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Get Ready for Our Time!
This semester, our toddlers will receive a couple of fun harmonicas with their at-home materials. If you want a little inspiration for your little one, or just some good 'ole fun, check out this guy on the harmonica!
Ya just have to know he was a Kindermusik kid, don't ya think?
Ya just have to know he was a Kindermusik kid, don't ya think?
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
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