Last day for early-birds!

Just a quick message from us today!


Remember - the early bird discount offer closes tomorrow :) Pay your deposit before then & take advantage of a $10 discount on your term's tuition!


Jarvis & I are looking forward to next term already - especially with all of the inspiration I will have gained from the Kindermusik conference in Mooloolaba in two weeks time. 


Have a musical day :)
Kath & Jarvis 

...and freeze!

Freeze games are so much fun - the anticipation of when the music will stop, the giggling as you try to stay in one spot 'til it's time to move again, the springing back into life as the music starts up...

Not only are 'stop-start' games like this fantastically fun, they're also developing our all important inhibitory control. When our little ones are just getting used to this whole moving around business, their body takes a wee while to respond to the messages being sent by their brains. This is why you'll often experience a few crashes in the initial stages of walking and running - even though their brain is saying 'Stop!!', their legs often don't get the message 'til it's too late! 

As with so many things, the more we practice, the better we get! The more opportunities our children have to practice their stopping and starting, the stronger the connections between their brain & their feet will grow and the easier stopping on demand will become :) And being able to stop in a hurry is a useful skill to have - think about crossing the road, or having another person unexpectedly cross your path when you're running!  

Playing 'freeze' with some favourite music is a wonderful way to work on inhibitory control, as is taking a story for a walk (as we did in class with the story 'Little Feather'  - which you can download here! If you register with play.kindermusik.com you automatically get three credits - use one to download this lovely story!). 

Have a lovely weekend - try and find an opportunity to bring some stop-start action into your day ;)

:) Kath

Hickory, Dickory, Tickle and Bounce

A bit of a sad morning 'round here - the last lesson of the term! It's been so wonderful having all of the wonderful families come & be a part of our Kindermusik family this past eight weeks :) 


It was especially lovely to see our visitors at the 'Friends & Whanau' class on Saturday! The second time round was so enjoyable it's going to become a permanent fixture here at Serendipity Studio, I love having a class where Dads, Nanas, brothers, sisters, cousins and friends can all come along and see what we get up to on a Tuesday morning! 


Jarvis and I will miss all of our friends over the holidays, but don't worry - I'm accepting enrolments for next term's class!


Here's a little about our upcoming unit - 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 rhyme and songs from class, a rhyming picture board book—Hickory, Dickory, Tickle, and Bounce, a set of Art Banners, and an instrument for music-making at home. 

Our class exploded in popularity this term, leading to rather a full house! Our class size is limited to ten, so if you'd like to be a part of this gorgeous unit celebrating the nursery rhymes we all grew up with, be in quick! To take advantage of our earlybird discount, your $65 deposit needs to be in by Friday, September 17th :) 

Visit the website to enrol or to find out more! Everything's online - from the enrolment form through to payment facilities! 

Over the holiday break, I'll keep posting wonderful ways to share music with your family...looking forward to next term already!

Take care,

Kath

An excellent listen

Hello all! A very busy week around here - apologies for not posting until now. I might even get two posts in tonight if I'm tricky!


I listened to a fantastic piece on National Radio today, about the profound effects of music on our young friends - it even made mention of Kindermusik Village! It was an interview with Greta Bradman, an amazing singer who has studied developmental psychology and neurophysiology, focussing on the impact of music on the brain. 


I highly recommend you take a few minutes to have a listen :) It will reinforce that you really are making the best choice for your child by being a part of our wonderful Kindermusik family.


Radio New Zealand - Kathryn Ryan interviewing Greta Bradman

Birds Making Music :)

Just a tiny post from me this week, I hope everyone's been enjoying listening to the birds singing us beautiful songs, reminding us that spring is just around the corner!


Here is a most wonderful link to explore at home, the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellington has a great website, and on it we discovered a page dedicated to the songs of our native birds. We've been having a fantastic time playing the sound clips, and listening to the ways Jarvis responds to them! 

As always, the fantail is his favourite ;)

Remember, imitating sounds is a fantastic way for our little ones to get ready for speech, and it's lots of fun too!

http://www.sanctuary.org.nz/Site/Conservation_and_Research/Birds_sounds.aspx

Feathered Friends :)

What a fantastic Feathers class we had yesterday!! The lovely  Sal brought along her real live feathered friend to meet us :) Our Kindermusik Village class thought La La was just wonderful - especially when he came out of his house & sat on Sal's shoulder. 


Birds are nature's most wonderful music makers - and La La very happily joined in when we sang our songs. It was a shame poor Jarvis wasn't feeling well and was exiled from the class (and went on an outing with his Dad!), he loves echoing La La's squeals!


Echoing interesting sounds and exploring what their voices can do is a great language acquisition tool for our small friends, by listening and experimenting they learn how to use their mouths in different ways to make different sounds, a very important precursor to using real words. So, spending some time with the birds is a very useful way to spend an afternoon!


There are lots of ways of encouraging lovely wildlife to come and sing to you - and one of these is to leave them something tasty to eat! Try this recipe out - it's from the NZ Forest & Bird website :)


Bird Pudding...
1 - 2 cups of fat
Crumbled up stale bread, biscuits or birdseed
Honey
Bacon Rinds


Place the fat, honey and bacon rinds in a bowl. Stand in another bowl filled with boiling water. When the fat begins to melt, add the crumbs or birdseed. Stir the mixture to combine, and squish into a ball shape. When it's cooled down, put your bird pudding ball into a mesh bag (like the ones you buy onions in!), and hang it in a tree. You can also put out a tasty drink for your feathered visitors - they love sweetened water! Make sure you put it all up high enough that any passing cats don't interrupt the party :) 


We're inviting our native birds into our Kindermusik classroom as well as into our garden - the class created a very cool version of 'Who's Making All that Noise' this week. I'm looking forward to seeing what we can come up with next week!


Musically yours,
Kath :)


PS...Jarvis missed his friends terribly this week - hopefully he'll be back on board next Tuesday!

Become an Explorer!

Hello everyone - and welcome to term three! We had a fantastic first class for the term this morning, and are very excited to welcome Sarah & Tiki to our Kindermusik family :)

Did you know that babies who are allowed to explore within safe limits generally become eager and flexible learners? Finding new ways of using objects is great food for young brains :)  When our children are investigating objects, they're creating Action Schemes in their minds - what it looks like, feels like, tastes like, the sound it makes when you shake it, what happens when you bash it on something, all of that wonderful stuff. 

Do some investigating at your house! You could use a store bought instrument, something you've made, or even something from the kitchen (Jarvis is a big fan of the potato masher!). Think outside the box - what fantastical ways can you find of using it to make music? What sounds does it make?

I'd love to hear about your explorations - your comments always make me smile :) 

Have a musical week! Kath & Jarvis