New Kindermusik Radio App for iPhone
Dance, march, skip, and stretch. Swing your partner and then rock to a lullaby. Smile and laugh. Like Kindermusik classes, the NEW Kindermusik Radio app provides parents with a way to engage and interact with their children – while training the brain, soothing the soul, and bringing families together.
Research shows that music helps children become better learners. Toddlers love to dance, swing and sing as they develop their motor and aural skills. Preschoolers strengthen neural pathways by making up songs and rhymes as their imaginations run wild. With 5 stations to choose from, the Kindermusik Radio app will give you and your child access to over 100 tracks, the very finest and authentic reproductions of classic children’s songs, nursery rhymes, and stories as well as Kindermusik originals.
The Kindermusik Radio app offers a parent-child activity for every song, each activity designed to engage and entertain young listeners as well as stimulate early childhood development. The activities are based on principles defined by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the Music Educators’ National Conference (MENC). Kindermusik International has over 30 years experience in developing early learning curricula and products based on the work of early childhood development experts such as Piaget, Montessori, and Greenspan, and the music education philosophies of Orff, Kodaly, and Dalcroze.
Sing. Move. Listen. Share. Anywhere.
Click here to check out or order the Kindermusik Radio app for iPhones and iPod Touches, available for $1.99 in the iTunes store. Or search “Kindermusik radio” in the App store.
The app was developed by Night & Day Studios, based in Portland, OR. They develop arts, educational, and entertainment apps and have created 25 iPhone applications, including Peekaboo Barn and Kidopolis.
reposted from the Kindermusik International (KI) blog “Minds on Music”
Classes Canceled for Friday, Jan. 21st – St. Andrew’s ONLY
Hi, Friends,
We’re canceling classes again for tomorrow, Friday, Jan. 21st, but only for the St. Andrew’s location since KCMO Public Schools have closed. If we get word that Shawnee Mission Schools are closing, we will cancel those classes as well.
Everybody stay safe and warm!
Kindermusik with Joy
Classes Canceled for Thursday, Jan. 20
Dear Kindermusik Families,
We are canceling the Thursday Kindermusik classes for tomorrow, Jan. 20th due to inclement weather. As a reminder, classes at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and UMKC are canceled whenever KCMO Public Schools close. Classes at Beller Dance Studio are canceled whenever Shawnee Mission Public Schools close. The Thursday Kindermusik classes at St. Andrew’s will start next Thursday Jan. 27th, and we will either add a makeup during our normal Spring Break or on May 12th. Expect more details about a makeup once we’ve worked out the schedule.
Feel free to email or call 913.322.2151 if you have questions.
Stay safe and warm, and we’ll look forward to seeing you all next week!
Kindermusik with Joy
Announcing Enrollment for Spring 2011!
Are you ready to take the next step in your child’s musical journey? This spring, we’ll continue to provide new concepts and challenges along with new songs, activities, and materials for each session as we work to ensure that each age-appropriate level acts as a stepping stone to the next-paving the way to a musical journey that can last seven magnificent, musical years. Read below for enrollment dates as well as a sneak peek at the class themes for Spring!
Enrollment Time is coming – and fast. Here’s the scoop:
October 25 – Priority Enrollment Opens (for Families Currently Enrolled with Kindermusik with Joy)
If you are currently enrolled, be watching your email for details on how you can enroll in class.
November 8 – Enrollment Opens to the Public
Classes will start January 19 and run through May 9, with a break in March for Spring Break.
Themes for Spring
Kindermusik Village (ages 0-18 months)
Hickory, Dickory, Tickle, and Bounce— Research shows the more you expose your baby to nursery rhymes and songs, the stronger those emerging language-learning skills will be. That’s why these Mother Goose-like stories and rhymes are the main theme of this class. Plus, you’ll develop research-proven communication strategies with your child through listening activities, speaking “parentese,” and sign language.
Home Materials: CD of beautifully arranged nursery rhymes and songs from class, a rhyming picture board book—Hickory, Dickory, Tickle, and Bounce, a set of Art Banners, and a Gripper Shaker for music-making at home.
The Rhythm of My Day— This class will help you bring more rhythm and routine to your baby’s day, as well as help develop lasting learning skills. We’ll show you how and tell you why music can help your little one soothe into the day’s schedule and help build a strong body and mind network for learning. You can bring home those same stress-free play and relaxation techniques from class, and incorporate them into your daily routines.
Home Materials: CD of beautifully arranged songs from class, The Rhythm of My Day—a colorful picture board book with class themes, a set of Art Banners, and a Young Maestro Tambourine for music-making at home.
Kindermusik Our Time (for ages 18 months – 3 years)
Fiddle-Dee-Dee — We’ll meet many animal characters in our books, activities, and songs—each specifically chosen for a toddler’s emerging interests and physical skills. With silly, bumpy lap bounces we’ll help toddlers develop rhythm while further developing their ever-emerging language skills. With a special stringed instrument emphasis in the music from class, parents can bring home the violin, cello, and orchestra sounds to help their toddlers stay happy and engaged learners at home, too.
Home Materials: Double CD featuring songs from class; two interactive storybooks—This Little Piggy Played the Fiddle and Animal Serenade to develop early literacy skills; Home Activity Book, and a pair of Fiddlestick instruments.
Kindermusik Imagine That! (for ages 3-5 years)
Cities! Busy Places ~ Friendly Faces - In this unit, sidewalks, elevators, skyscrapers, and world-traveling photographers are the theme. Learning through the pretend play that preschoolers adore, we’ll be rhythmically busy playing storytelling games and handcrafting city “buildings” at home so we can make a cityscape in class! Plus every activity has some at-home adaptations so the parent can take part in the learning. With a pair of resonator bars as a featured instrument, and a multicultural, jazzy collection of music, preschoolers will develop the social and intellectual skills they’ll need in school alongside the basic fundamentals of music which will prepare them for private lessons or group musical study.
Home Materials: Two books—Razupazu Toto and Down Our Street, Cities! Game Board Set, Two Home CDs—collection of multicultural and jazzy music heard in class, Family Activity Book, and a pair of resonator bars as the featured instrument.
Kindermusik for the Young Child Semester 2 (for children ages 5-7 who have completed Semester 1)
Playing simple musical patterns and songs on the glockenspiel, our featured instrument from the first session, is a central focus this semester along with greater emphasis on learning to read and write music. 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, crescendo and decrescendo, and staccato and legato. Orchestral music, such as the William Tell Overture and Peter and the Wolf, serves as a starting point for building music appreciation and understanding leading to a complete introduction to the instruments of the orchestra and the families in which they’re grouped.
Kindermusik for the Young Child Semester 4 (for children ages 5- 7 who have completed Semesters 1, 2, & 3)
In this final semester, we’ll introduce the recorder instrument. As your child is introduced to basic methods of playing simple melodic patterns and songs on this wind instrument, we’ll also incorporate the instruments, concepts, and songs from previous semesters. With a special emphasis on multicultural music, your child will learn to improvise and write music, as well as experience the musical styles of the Pacific Islands, Europe, and Africa along with dances and children’s games from the Alps, Mexico, and Ecuador. Class will culminate with a special Kindermusik Graduation, to which the whole studio will be invited, May 14.
Freeze!
Sound and silence. Motion and stillness. These are some pretty abstract concepts and important ones for musical development. As our kids in Kindermusik for the Young Child – Semester 1 are learning about the idea of a rest in music, it’s important that they really have lots of experience with both silence and stillness in contrast to sound and motion. In order to reinforce these ideas in the first two weeks of class, our amazing youngsters have been dancing and freezing in response to the Move and Freeze dance from their home CDs. Then during Week 2, they drew in response to the music and paused in their drawing to move to a different section of paper when there was silence. The result is a graphic representation after a fashion, which also helps us present an elementary form of the idea of symbolic recognition, that a symbol or picture can stand for a sound. Here you can see a sample of what they drew:
Notice all the white space on the paper? That’s where you can “see” the silence. Even more interesting, some contemporary composers have gone to more graphic representations stepping away from traditional notations towards more abstract drawings inviting improvisation from the performer, and in some instances composers even work with contemporary artists to create graphic representations in real time along with improvised electro-acoustic compositions. In many ways, it’s really not that far of a step from what your child is doing now. Exciting beginnings!
ABC Music & Me Comes to First Lutheran in Kansas City
We are pleased and delighted to announce that starting in September, Kindermusik with Joy will be offering ABC Music & Me classes for children enrolled at First Lutheran Early Education Center (FLEEC) in Kansas City, MO.
What, you might ask, is ABC Music & Me? Well, it happens to be a special music and movement program created by Kindermusik for use in a variety of settings, including a variation expressly for use in daycares and preschools, such as FLEEC. Kids participate in moving, singing, instrument exploration, just like in a normal Kindermusik class. They also get their own set of materials to take home with a new theme each month including a Take-home CD, a Take home instrument every other month, and an ABC Music and Me Family Guide. One great feature is that the ABC Music & Me Home Kit materials describe in detail every activity from class, as well as provide parents with unique insight and information into how a child learns. It’s kind of like having a customized magazine subscription to what’s happening every week at the center. Pretty cool.
So, next Tuesday, August 24th, our new teacher Miss Michelle will be offering a special preview to FLEEC families. Then in September she’ll start teaching two sections on Tuesdays:
ABC Music & Me (2-4 years) Tuesdays at 3:30 pm
ABC Music & Me (4-6 years) Tuesdays at 4:15 pm
If you want more information on how you might offer classes at your daycare or preschool or you’re a parent at FLEEC and want to register, just click here.
Kindermusik: What to Expect
The Kindermusik Philosophy
We’ve all had them: the “what ifs.” “What if she cries?” “What if he won’t sit still?” In fact, they are so common, there’s even a video about them.
The truth is: Kids are kids, and they all respond differently. Some even respond completely differently at home to the same activities they experience in class.
Some children are naturally hesitant and others are over-stimulated by a group
environment. Some learn best by watching. Others need to jump right in and try it out from the start. Help your child find her best way to participate and feel free to adapt much of what we do in class or at home to suit your family’s personal interests and learning styles.
And what if…He runs. She cries. He just sits there.
Support him. Perhaps she needs a brief moment in the hall to calm down. Maybe an extra hug or some gentle redirection will do the trick. And always set an example with your own active, enthusiastic participation. Joyful involvement and a spirit of being fully present with your child in the moment is not only contagious, it helps build a spirit of cooperation with even the most tantrum-prone toddler.
Lastly, we ask for a little help from you.
Our young children are still learning how to interact in a group setting, so we need you to help us create a safe and enjoyable classroom. Here are some things you can do:
- Help remind your child as needed that running and throwing are not permitted in the classroom unless specified by the teacher during a particular activity.
- Help keep distractions to a minimum by keeping toys, juice cups, and pacifiers out of sight during class. Likewise, no food or drink is allowed in the classroom.
- When you are in class with us, we will always allow you to take the lead in disciplining your child. You can help us by catching inappropriate classroom behavior early.
Rest assured, there really is no right or wrong way to do Kindermusik. We won’t kick you out if she cries or he runs. In fact, most of the parents in the room will have been in your shoes at one time or another. Nor are there any awards for most participation. So relax. Take a deep breath. And savor the moment you have together.
Kansas City – Are Your Ready for the Start of Kindermusik?
by z287marc on Flickr used via Creative Commons license
This is what my house starts to look like this time of year, except the boxes are bigger, and they all say “Kindermusik” on the side. It’s rather like Christmas as new packages arrive regularly, and in just two weeks, I get to pass out fun “presents” to all our dear families. So, for the next couple of weeks, you can expect a few posts to help us all get ready for the start of Fall Kindermusik classes August 21st.
And don’t worry, though classes are filling quickly, there’s still time to register for our Kindermusik classes at St. Andrew’s in Kansas City, MO or Beller Dance Studio in Overland Park, KS. Check out the full schedule here.
Music Improves Verbal Skills and Literacy
I ran across this article again the other day, and as it pertains to our talk about language development and multi-sensory learning in the “Zoo Train!” classes for toddlers, I thought I’d share it here.
“Music training, with its pervasive effects on the nervous system’s ability to process sight and sound, may be more important for enhancing verbal communication skills than learning phonics, according to a new Northwestern University study.”
The study goes on to say that the multi-sensory nature of music, something we’ve been talking about recently in our Kindermusik classes, builds skills needed for the ability to speak and read. In fact, it reaffirms that studying music actually shapes the brain.
Welcome to Our New Website!
Welcome Mat by alborzshawn (used by Creative Commons License on Flickr)
Hi, Friends and Happy Internet Wanderers,
I’d like to welcome you all to the brand new “Kindermusik with Joy” website. Since, you’re here, I’d like to highlight a few things you might find useful.
If you’re considering Kindermusik classes for your kiddo hopefully everything is pretty clear, but you can find class descriptions, info. on finding the best fit for your child, class schedules, maps and directions to our different locations, answers to the most frequent questions we get, and online registration for any of the classes. Don’t see something you need? Hit the “Contact Us” button and let us know.
If you’re a parent in one of our current classes, we’ve added two things to this site I always wished we could have on the other. First, we added a calendar. Now you can check our website to see when we’re on break, when your makeup class is scheduled, when the semester ends – any of those things that make calendars so handy. Second, I am now able to integrate our blog, our website, and our Facebook page fairly seemlessly. Yay! Hopefully that means I’m going to hand you fewer handouts and give you more information online. That also means our blog will start to have a lot more fun ideas for things you can do at home or around Kansas City with your kiddo, which handily will also feed directly to our Facebook page. AND I’m hoping to get to do some fun “show and tell” sorts of things from the classes, especially for our preschool and older classes where the parents don’t always get to see the cool things happening in the classroom.
So…I recommend you join us on Facebook or maybe even sign up for our RSS feed, so you can keep up with the what’s happening at Kindermusik with Joy.
Classes
descriptions and tips for finding the best fit
