Month: June 2011

How to Incorporate Music into Baby’s Day!

Village Ben
Music is such an important part of learning and it’s never too soon to start adding music into baby’s life! Music can help you calm and sooth baby and also help to open up baby’s brain to new learning opportunities!

● Adding soft calm music such as lullabies or classical pieces while you rock and soothe baby aides in parent/child bonding while also stimulating baby’s sense of balance and coordination and teaching baby how to relax. I bet you didn’t know there were that many benefits to rocking!
● Bath time is full of learning opportunities. Adding music to bath time by singing a little ditty about body parts helps your baby learn about body awareness while also exploring language, musical and sensory stimulus. And multi-faceted learning experiences that engage all of baby’s senses are the most successful ones!
● Add a rhyme and and exercise to changing time. Babies all go through that phase of squirming and crying and giving you a tough time changing that diaper. So why not give them something to anticipate. Give them an instrument to hold and recite a nursery rhyme while you change them. At the end of diaper change, do a little exercise to the beat or rhythm of the rhyme. Moving baby’s limbs will help her gain muscle control and feeling the beat will help her develop her own sense of time leading to the ability to mover herself to the steady beat – an important part of creating music but also important in learning to dance, play sports and coordinate her body.
● Sing good morning and goodnight! Routine is so important in baby’s day. His routine helps set a sense of emotional security, creating a successful learning environment. So why not add a little music to your baby’s greeting and goodnight routines. Baby loves your voice, no matter what your singing ability is, so sing sing sing and foster a love and appreciation for music!

Studies have proven that young children who participate in music classes like the ones we offer at Sing Music Studio actually improve brain functioning and help your child to excel at learning when they reach school age. So it certainly makes sense to add a music class into your baby’s weekly schedule. In our baby music classes, you’ll learn that each of our many songs and activities have a purpose and how you can easily work those activities into your baby’s day at home. Plus you will receive a CD, instrument and storybook to help you further the musical interaction at home! So what are you waiting for? Join our baby music classes and baby summer camps at the Sing Music Studio to create the best possible future for your child!

The Family Musical Bond

I think I’ve mentioned before what a strong impact making music with my family as a child has had on me throughout my life. I was lucky enough to have musical parents and siblings. As a child, my parents would play their guitars while they, my 2 sisters and I would sing along at the top of our lungs! My parents also took us to concerts, musicals, ballet and the symphony from a young age. And if we weren’t off listening to or making music, we had the tunes pumping in our house and were always singing along! As my sisters and I grew older we learned to play instruments and trained our voices and the sing alongs were led by us, instead of our parents, as we performed for our extended family with the piano and lots and lots of singing!

So when I talk about the importance of doing musical activities together as a family unit, not only am I speaking of this from an expert’s perspective, but also from personal experience. I could talk until I’m blue in the face about the benefits of music and how making music in a structured, expert led environment effects learning and development in every area and at every stage of life. But today, I want to talk about how supporting your child’s learning as a family unit is so important.

The more you show your child support in their music class, the more you are making your child feel confident and grow self esteem and creating a sense of emotional security within your family. That’s why it’s so important that grown-ups participate just as much as children do in a Kindermusik class. The family unit is so important throughout our entire lives. We lean on our families for emotional support at every age. So setting that family togetherness support system up from day one is your way of building that family bond. Certainly having one on one time with your child or children is also important. But when you have more than one child it’s also important to do activities together that engage the whole family.

I know that not all families have the musical resources that I had as a child – parents and siblings who sing and play instruments. But I want every family to experience the same kind of joyful musical experiences I did as a child. That’s why I became a musician and music educator! I don’t expect your child to grow up to be a musician or educator too, just to grow up with a love and appreciation for music and a way to express themselves. That’s why here at the Sing Music Studio, we offer Family Time classes that allow you to build that family bond that’s so important! And there’s a new family class beginning in 2 weeks: Zoo Train! We’ll hop on the Allee Allee O and visit the zoo animals together as a family! I can’t wait to share my love of music with your family!

Family time