Minds on Music

6 reasons music belongs in a Head Start or preschool program

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Something amazing happens in a preschool classroom when music comes out to play. Children (and teachers!) smile and laugh, hum or sing along, and move their bodies to the steady beat. Children express thoughts and feelings naturally and easily through movement and music. However, the benefits of music reach beyond the simple pleasure of making music together. Participating in musical activities preps children for
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4 Benefits of Music for Toddlers

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Toddlers are well, busy.  They love to go, move, do, and say “No!”  They also desperately crave predictability and routine.  Parents are challenged by near polar opposite behavior – one minute all is well; the next, there’s a meltdown.  A toddler will cling to mom as if he’ll never let go, and the next moment adamantly assert the independence of a teenager.  At the
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5 ways Kindermusik helps preschoolers reach early learning benchmarks

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Preschool teachers notice the signs long before the children do. Boxes of sharpened and unused crayons. Full canisters of tempura paints. New bags of sand for the sensory table. The smell of the freshly laminated name tags. Yes, all signs point to a new school year starting soon! At the beginning of each school year, preschool teachers gather more than new supplies for the
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Babies: Dancing their way to friendship

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Before social media, making friends and maintaining relationships involved more than clicking yes to a “Friend Request” or commenting on a status update. (Well, technically it still does.) To be a good friend, regardless of age, we need to share, use our “kind and polite words,” take turns, show empathy, listen, practice conflict resolution—essentially put into practice all those skills that make a good
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Music & Movement Benefits: Language Development

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Lifting. Squatting. Twirling. Bending. Whew! Sometimes Kindermusik class feels more like a workout than, well, a workout. Okay, maybe not P90x, but still! While a parent works out muscles each week, young children build early language skills through music and movement activities. 2 benefits of music and movement on language development Pairing the word with the movement helps babies and young children understand the
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3,600+ ways to build a healthy parent-child bond in a baby’s first year

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3,600. That’s the approximate number of times a baby needs a diaper change in the first year alone. (Yowser! That’s a lot of diapers.) Of course, every diaper change satisfies the physical needs of a baby, but it also meets a baby’s developing social and emotional needs. Every time a baby cries and a parent responds to the need, it strengthens the vital parent-child
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4 benefits of music for babies

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Nothing really prepares a person for the season of life called Parenting. It’s one of those things that no one really tells you. After all, parenting feels a bit like playing a game where the rules change constantly. For example, shortly after mastering the perfect origami-like swaddle, your child no longer needs it to sleep through the night. Or maybe you finally figured out how
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After school curriculum for children with special needs

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With a large number of dual-income families, the school day often extends to after school programs. However, for children with special needs, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, the options for a quality after school program curriculum are limited. As published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies, Michelle Haney, PhD, highlighted the growing need for after school curriculum inclusive of children with special
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Professional Development for all “Seasons” of Your Music Teaching Career

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One of the things that sets Kindermusik educators apart is the requirement to not only be trained to teach our world-class curricula, but also the requirement to maintain and improve through professional development.  No matter what “season” you are in with your current or potential Kindermusik career, Kindermusik International offers professional development that’s just what you need when you need it. When you’re just
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Extraordinary benefit of music on the cognitive development of children

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Take a peek inside any Kindermusik classroom around the world and you will see much of the same thing. We sing. We dance. We play instruments. We listen to music. We move our bodies in response to music. We create music. In all of our musical activities for kids, we engage children and families in learning both in the early childhood classroom and in
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