The Green Hour for Little Ones
photo by gemsling used with Creative Commons license via Flickr
Leaves, feathers, rocks, and birds. These themes keep popping up these days in class. That means, it’s time to get outside.
In the last few years, parenting experts and health experts alike have been championing “the green hour” with the recommendation that children get outdoors for an hour each day in order to experience a happier and healthier life. Truly, time outside often provides exercise as well as necessary Vitamin D and helps children and adults sleep better. You can’t beat it. Well, here this week are a 10 fast and fun things to do with your sweet ones out of doors.
1. Go on a nature walk. Kids of all ages adore nature walks. Whether you have a small or large yard, take a walk around the block, or head to a park, there is always something new to discover: blades of grass, sticks and stones, tiny bugs, mud puddles, dewdrops, spider webs, sirens, airplanes, and on and on. Follow your child’s lead as you explore. This week you might especially enjoy exploring leaves – touching them, talking about the colors, and of course crunching them with hands or even more fun, with stomping feet!
2. Start a collection. Find a place in your home to share natural treasures. Toddlers, preschoolers, and big kids especially love bringing bits of the outside in to enjoy, and they never seem to care whether they’ve found flowers or weeds. Pull out a vase, a jar, or a bowl to fill with some of the prizes from your explorations. This time of year you might even go to a pumpkin patch together to gather gourds or pumpkins to decorate your home, but even rocks, twigs, and colorful leaves can make great displays to which your children will be delighted to contribute.
3. Pull out the sidewalk chalk. Use sturdy cardstock or old file folders to make stencils or draw free form. Use the opportunity to talk about shapes, colors, and even letters.
4. Start a leaf fight. As the leaves slowly begin to pile up in your yard, take the opportunity to get outside for plenty of jumping in leaf piles and having good ole leaf throwing fests.
5. Visit a garden. We often forget about gardens this time of year, but Kansas City is full of beautiful gardens with great activities for kids. Two of our favorites include Powell Gardens and the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Garden. Powell Gardens has fun scarecrows on display through the end of October. Both gardens also have nature trails if you’d prefer a traditional hike.
6. Plant flowers or herbs. As the seasons change it can be a great time to plant bulbs for spring, mums for fall, or even transplant herbs to bring indoors for cooking. Let your kids help. They love having permission to get dirty and get a chance to learn a little science along the way.
7. Take a trip to an orchard or pumpkin patch. The metro area here is ripe for harvest. Some favorite pumpkin patches with games, rides, food, and even trains include: Carolyn’s Country Cousins, Faulkner’s Pumpkin Farm, or for a more traditional pumpkin patch without all the frills check out Pumpkins Etc.. If you prefer apple cider and apple doughnuts alongside or instead of your pumpkin picking check out Weston Red Barn Farm, Louisburg Cider Mill, or Schweizer Orchards.
8. Put out birdseed. Whether you simply sprinkle a bit of seed on your deck or build your own bird feeder, sharing some seed guarantees you’ll have birds (and perhaps a few squirrels) come to visit your yard. Be sure to set food near a window where you can see and enjoy the show! When the birds stop by for a visit, talk about their colors, different bird songs, and what they might do or eat. You could even draw some pictures or sing some of your favorite bird (and even squirrel) songs from Kindermusik.
9. Go see the animals. Perhaps you caught a glimpse of some of your favorite farm animals when you were at the orchards or pumpkin patches, but if not, you might think about taking a trip to Deanna Rose Farmstead or even the Zoo. And if you’re taking a baby along, be sure to look up some of your favorite animal signs with this handy online video dictionary before you head out. Animals are always great motivators for teaching babies to sign!
10. Watch the clouds. We all need to stop and rest and just soak it in for a bit. What better way than to look for cloud shapes with your cuties. While preschoolers and big kids are more likely to help you pick out shapes and pictures, even babies and toddlers might sit for a minute and rest with you and talk about the sun and the sky and the clouds.
So, get out and enjoy this amazing weather. Whether you use one or ten of these ideas, you’re sure to make memories that last a lifetime!
Leaves and Tickles for Lunch
photo by simonnjulia used by Creative Commons license via Flickr
I was quietly reading my new book when I was attacked. A handful of leaves was suddenly thrust in my face followed by tons of giggles. Up goes the book. Up comes tired mom, and I’m off for a leaf-throwing tickle-fest with my three year old. It was utterly unproductive in the midst of what needed to be a productive day. It was utterly unplanned in a week full of dates and clocks and schedules. And it was exactly what we both needed. Tickles and leaves postponed our lunch as we soaked up the sun. It was perfect. And I thought, “Wow. I should find a way to do this everyday.”
I’ve read a lot of parenting books emphasizing the importance of giving your child presence in an activity. Taking time to spend a moment together with your child when they have 100% of your attention can greatly improve behavior, aid in development, enhance that all important bonding. But the truth is, it just feels good. Somehow to me it always feels like one of those moments when time stands still because you’re absolutely head over heels in love with the little person in your life. Who doesn’t love that feeling? So, I made a decision today to find a way to make space for these moments every day. I know it will happen when I carve out some time to do a little bit of nothing together. No agenda. No aims to get in as much good for your brain activities as possible. No distractions like phones or the internet or the TV. No demands for a snack or a nap. Just a few minutes to just be 100% together.
How ’bout it? Got a minute to try it now. I know that’s where I’m headed. See you after my next leaf fight.
Using Hugs to Keep Us Healthy
Want to keep your child healthy and happy? Bring on the hugs! And set aside time for lots of loving touch in the form of backrubs, snuggles, and out and out massage.
Research suggests that touch is as important to your child’s growth as are eating and sleeping. In fact, babies who are not touched at all typically do not grow at a normal pace. Touch is of utmost importance to your child’s well-being.
Creating a Bond
One beautiful way to create special bonding is through loving touch, which can be experienced in a variety of ways. Just think of all the time that you were brought closer to a friend or a loved one with close eye contact and a gentle touch, whether it was a hug, an arm around the shoulder, or even just holding hands. That’s because hugs create oxytocin, sometimes called “the bonding hormone”. Oxytocin is a hormone that produces a feeling of calm and comfort in addition to promoting feelings of security and trust in a relationship. Sharing in gentle massage, rubbing backs, or rocking together can this effect. Through the eye contact, skin contact, and speech or song associated with these loving touches, both you and your child can achieve a state of relaxation and calm. And the bond between you can be nurtured. “Touch is your [child’s] first language. Through the nurturing touch of massage, you communicate deep love and respect to your child in a language he or she understands well.” - Nurturing Touch, by Kalena Babeshoff, C.M.T. and Juliana Dellinger-Belovek, M.S.E., p. 17.
Physical Benefits of Intentional Touch
In addition to facilitating emotional bonding, loving touch has many physical benefits. The skin is the largest organ of the body and has all sorts of nerve sensors for touch making the effects of touch very far reaching. Massage experts and researchers report that massage:
- encourages relaxation and lowers stress hormone levels (cortisol), heart rate, and blood pressure;
- produces significantly better growth rate (up to 47% higher for pre-term babies);
- improves circulation;
- strengthens the immune system and increases the number of white blood cells;
- builds muscle tone;
- reduces stress responses and levels of pain in painful procedures including vaccines;
- reduces pain associated with teething and constipation;
- reduces colic;
- helps induce sleep;
- improves allergies in the form of atopic dermatitis;
- helps improve the symptoms of ADHD and autism;
- keeps blood sugar levels in check;
- is valuable for children of all ages.
Cognitive Benefits of Loving Touch
Loving Touch builds a better brain. Whenever your child is touched in a loving way, Nerve Growth Factor (NGF), a hormone in the brain, is produced causing more development of nerve nests in the nervous system. Intentional touch also promotes nerve myelination, making for better mind to body communication. Massage of the back provides stimulation to an area that is vitally important to child development. As the back is stimulated, it stimulates the growth of nerves all over the body. (Carla Hannaford, interview with Kindermusik International Creative Team, Tape Recording, BrownsSummit, NC, 18 Jan 2000) Even more interesting, massage not only improves cognitive development but also cognitive performance. One study showed that children performed better on a series of cognitive tests after just 15 minutes of massage as compared with their peers.
Touch in Class
Kindermusik feels so strongly about the importance of touch on the development of your child, that we’ve made a point to include it in class. That’s because loving touch benefits everyone, no matter how old you are.
- Touch for Babies: The warm-up activities and gentle massage at the beginning of each Village class as well as the rocking time or quiet time later in class can all include loving touch. Scientific research tells us that this time of loving touch stimulates the regulation of healthy levels of a stress hormone in Baby’s brain. In Kindermusik Village, intentional touch activities also provide the opportunity to watch others for new ideas of ways to participate. In class, Baby may not always be comfortable with this activity. If this is the case, find other ways to interact during this time such as bouncing with a steady beat or walking slowly together to the music. Then consider trying to incorporate loving touch activities at home when Baby is not distracted by the classroom environment.
- Touch for Toddlers and Big Kids: For toddlers in Our Time, we include rocking time each week in class, which also makes a perfect moment for snuggles, backrubs, and even a little gentle massage. But the space we make for touch doesn’t end there, even in the big kid classes, you’ll find time for partner activities with lots of high fives, tickles, hugs, and eye contact, circle dances with holding hands, and even the occasional rocking time. It’s a great reminder that any touch, no matter how small is beneficial.
Intentional Touch Everyday
Loving touch can easily become part of your everyday routine with your child.
Some tips for loving touch:
- Set the mood for massage by playing your Home CD or other quiet music.
- Set aside a small area for massage. Put a blanket on the floor and have lots of pillows so you are comfortable, too.
- Make it a ritual to practice massage every night before bed or after a bath. The soothing effects will be good for both of you.
- Consistency will promote a stronger sense of enjoyment and fulfillment.
- The bond between a child and a caregiver is be strengthened through intentional touch, so allow different caregivers to take part in the sessions.
- Remember to massage different parts of your child’s body – backs, feet, legs, arms. For babies the practice of making an “M” or heart shape on Baby’s chest while massaging is especially soothing.
- Accompany intentional touch with quiet singing or humming.
- Give hugs and lots of them.
- Enjoy toe tickles, partner songs and games, and circle dances holding hands.
- Snuggle.
To read more about the benefits of touch, check out these great websites:
http://www6.miami.edu/touch-research/ChildMassage.html
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/touching.makes.you.healthier.health/index.html
Reading the Signs
Duck Crossing Sign - Photo by Wollombi via Flickr Creative Commons License
“Look, Mom. That signs says ‘Watch out for Ducks crossing.’” That’s what I heard from my three year old in the back of the car this morning, and indeed, though it has no words or letters to read, that is what the sign “says.” Yay! We’ve reached symbolic recognition. Actually this has been a long time coming, and if you know what to look for this piece of the language acquisition puzzle is a lot of fun to watch. At least I think so, but I am kind of an early childhood nerd.
Babies and Toddlers Love Symbols…well…sort of
In my mind, for babies and toddlers there are really two readily visible areas of growth regarding symbolic recognition. As is always true of children, the process starts with play. What you see initially is that your baby or toddler begins to substitute one object for another. This symbolic play happens as your child begins to understand that a toy stands for a real thing (e.g. a toy car represents a real car). And it happens fairly early on. The first stages of this may be seen as early as sometime within the second half of the first year of Baby’s life, and the stages expand in use and sophistication as Baby gets older. Initially you might see your child pretend to talk on a toy phone as if it were a real phone. But before long, in those toddler years you’ll start to see you child turn blocks into pretend cars, or as many of you have seen in class, turn sandblocks into trains!
Another big area which I see children learning symbolic awareness is through signing. As you use American Sign Language, your baby or young toddler very clearly begins to see that the symbols or pictures you both create with your hands represent something else – a word, a food, a favorite toy. Amazingly, babies as young as 6 months can start to respond to signs and even sign back, though for many children this skill comes closer to 10-12 months or even later. In fact, it is this very exposure to early symbolic recognition that leads kids who sign as children to have better language acquisition and literacy skills than their peers not only early on but also once they hit school. It makes sense seeing as it’s not a far leap from understanding a sign represents something to seeing that a letter represents a sound and a word represents an object or idea.
Preschoolers Love Symbols
The fascination with symbols and what kids learn from them explode once you hit the preschool years. Soon children start to recognize logos on stores. “Hey, Mom, There’s Target!” They start to “read” books to themselves using the pictures to figure out the story. And they fall in love with letters. After all, letters are really just symbols or pictures for sounds, and words are just symbols or pictures for things or ideas in our world. From there, it is just a few more steps to the magic of true reading!
Best of All – Musicians Love Symbols
It’s true. Music is full of pictures. Traditional music notation is nothing more than a picture of what you hear with notes moving up and down on the page as they move up and down the scale, and more contemporary graphic notation presents an even more vivid picture with blocks, squiggles, and lines designed by composers to inspire performers to create a representative sound. That’s why with the preschoolers, we begin to provide opportunities in class for them to create and respond to elementary examples of graphic notation. Some weeks they draw pictures to represent a musical except they’ve just heard. Other weeks, the teachers provide pictures of people climbing up a ladder (representing a musical scale) and sliding down (with a nice squiggle for a glissando or musical sliding sound). And with our big kids we go even further as we start to introduce traditional notation. Best of all, all this work with graphic and traditional notation, as well as the symbolic awareness that happens with storytelling and pretend play in class, simply reinforces overall symbolic recognition and awareness adding to pre-literacy skills and language acquisition skills across the board. What a fun process to share!
Playing with Songs
“Sing, sing a song.” - The Carpenters (or the Muppets/Sesame Street depending on your recollection)
Research shows that focusing on singing can be good for both cognitive development (abstract conceptual thinking, verbal abilities, originality) and motor development (particularly coordination). In fact, singing, which some say starts from the earliest stages of life, evolves through several developmental stages: first babbling, then repeating words and fragments, and finally adding rhythmic features and pitches. However, while matching pitches can start as early as 9 months, don’t expect your youngster to sing complete songs in tune for quite some time. Kiddos who have regular opportunities to sing do however learn to sing in tune long before their peers (some of whom never completely grasp this skill) often solidifying this skill by early grade school.
So what can you do?
Encourage Baby to sing by singing to and with her! Try all your favorite tunes from childhood or your Kindemusik class. Or make up your own songs to complement everyday activities. Here we go a-strolling, a-strolling, a-strolling, etc. You may be surprised. She might just sing back. Some babies will try to match pitch pretty early on and will even “fill in the blanks” if you leave out a note!
Out and About in KC: Classical Concerts for Kids
Ready for your first musical “field trip” with your kiddo? Kansas City is full of great concerts for the five and under crowd in a variety of genres. Here are two fantastic concert series you may not know about that highlight classical works for younger kids:
Kids Club
Each year, our partner organization, the UMKC Community Music & Dance Academy offers a special concert series for children ages 3-8 years of age called Kids Club. In fact, some of you may have been to our “Wiggle, Giggle, Quack” concert a couple of years ago, which the teachers at Kindermusik with Joy presented (with the help of my dear hubby and pianist, Andrew Granade).
This year the Academy has another great lineup with music and dance events taking us Around the World. Concerts include musical improvisations and explorations of Armenian music with Composer/pianist Tatev Amiryan and saxophonist Aryana Nemati (Oct. 8), the ballet the Cinderella (Nov. 5) highlighting music from Prokofiev, a presentation by the UMKC Graduate Brass Quintet (Jan. 28) of HornSmoke - a Wild West Romp with the silly kind of music and narrative combination only Peter Schickele can write, and the Kansas City Youth Symphony Orchestra (March 3) performing works from all over the globe.
Kids Club events are held at White Recital Hall in the James C. Olson Performing Arts Center, located at 4949 Cherry St. FREE parking is available. Each event starts at 10:00 a.m. and lasts about an hour.
For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.
Kansas City Symphony Family Series
For the slightly older crowd (starting at age 4) you might check out this delightful series with the Kansas City Symphony in their brand new concert hall. Introduce your child to music performed by some of Kansas City’s premiere musicians. Concerts are 70 minutes on Sundays at 2:30 pm, and the season includes:
A Christmas Festival – Dec. 18 featuring Christmas carols and Santa
Tchaikovsky Discovers America – Jan. 29 by the Classical Kids producers telling the story of the famous Russian’s visit to America
Jim Cosgrove “Mr. Stinky Feet!” live – April 22 presented by a KC local and favorite
Disney in Concert: Magical Music from the Movies – June 3 includes visual imagery and singing suitable for children of all ages
For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.
Who’s Making All That Noise?
Don’t you love all those silly sounds our babies make? I remember when my boys were tiny how my heart leapt at each first coo and gurgle and laugh! We did whatever we could to elicit laughter from those sweet little babies. I even remember how my heart would swell at those tiny baby sighs in their sleep. Then we moved to first words and delight over their sweet lisps and mispronunciations. In fact, I think I will cry the day my 3 year old loses the last of his babytalk.
Learning language is such a beautiful and fascinating process, and there are so many fun things you can do to help with this area of development. In many respects help is simply a matter of exposure to lots of songs, stories, and conversation, and just by singing to, talking with, and reading stories to your baby you are affecting a whole host of other areas of development including: listening, facial interaction, symbolic play, means to end behavior, object permanence, imitation, and vocal chord development. One particular activity – Vocal Play, as in “Who’s Making All That Noise?” from our current class for babies, can aid in Baby’s language acquisition.
In fact, vocal play is something many parents do all the time without realizing it. Simply speak to your baby, making sure to leave a pause in the “conversation” for her to speak back. Watch carefully for wiggles, smiles, or mouth motions indicating her side of the story. As babies get older certain words, phrases, or nonsense sounds will especially catch their interest and make for a perfect vocal play game. I remember how the word “mango” of all things used to bring peals of laughter at our house, though I am glad there is no video of my shenanigans as I spoke it high, fast, and super silly over and over and over.
Feathers Poem
Here’s a sweet poem about birds fun for chanting with your baby or young toddler, and perfect for reading along with the feathers book for those sweet little ones in our Village classes right now:
Feathers
By Ginger Covert Colla
Birdies, birdies now we see,
Won’t you, will you talk to me?
/
Humming bird, humming bird hovers and floats
While sipping some nectar from a flower’s throat.
Bluebird, bluebird now perchance
Chirping so merrily on the branch.
Kookaburra bird is big and bold
He laughs out loud so I am told.
Northern cardinal, oh so red,
He’s crowned with a topknot on his head.
The mallard duck likes to swim in the lake;
Quack, quack, quack is the sound he makes.
The wise old owl with golden eyes
Winks at me, oh what a surprise!
Ostrich, ostrich running free,
Won’t you share a feather with me?
Birdies, birdies fill the air
Flying here and flying there;
Winging their way all the day long,
Singing and sharing their gift of birdsong.
The Getting Dressed Hokey-Pokey
I don’t know about your house, but at our house, getting a little person dressed can often be a bit of a struggle. That’s why I began to use “The Getting Dressed Hokey-Pokey.” Here’s how it works.
Choose an article of clothing. We’ll use a T-Shirt. Now read and learn:
You sing, “You put your right arm in” (while putting right arm in the T-Shirt. Handy isn’t it.)
Pause as long as necessary to get the arm actually in.
Then sing, “You put your left arm in” (while putting left arm in the T-Shirt.)
Again, take as long as you need.
Then sing, “When you’ve got both arms in, you shake all about” (with a tickle or a jiggle)
Then “Do the Hokey-Pokey and you turn yourself about” (yes, Hokey, Pokey, and turn around)
Then clap your and/or your child’s hands as you sing “That’s What It’s All About!”
Of course, adapt as necessary for different moods, articles of clothing, situations, etc.
It definitely makes getting dressed more fun and before long, your little person might even sing or clap along. Just another fun way to use music to make your day together easier!
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