Kindermusik Birthday parties!

The Cherubs Clubhouse is THE place to have your child’s birthday!
Add Kindermusik to your child’s birthday party at the Cherubs Clubhouse for an additional $4.00 per child for up to 12 children. Additional children add $2.00 per child to the price. There is a minimum of 8 children. The Kindermusik session of the party is 30 minutes long.

Kindermusik birthday parties at the Cherub Clubhouse include:
Music and movement with scarves, hoops, parachute and/or bubble machine.
Puppets
Dress up
Instrument play along and exploration
Happy birthday sing along
Imaginative play
Currently enrolled Kindermusik students can book their party for only $3.00 per child! These rates only apply to parties hosted by the Cherubs Clubhouse and are in addition to the price for booking the Cherubs Clubhouse.

Themes include:
princess
cowboys and Indians
animals
transportation
Star Wars
Sesame street
Seasonal themes (Christmas, Halloween, and so forth)
Dinosaurs
and more!

Themed parties include Kindermusik songs and activities as well as your child's favorite songs, themes, characters, props or activities!

Kindergarten readiness skills: Part III: Steady Beat

Why is steady beat a Kindergarten readiness skill? What does steady beat have to do with academics?

First of all, working to develop a steady beat has more than just musical benefits. Of course if your child becomes a musician steady beat is an essential on any instrument. But did you ever think about the other benefits of steady beat?

Any repeated action in our everyday lives requires steady beat from the simplest activities such as walking with coordination, dribbling a ball, cutting with scissors, to more complex actions such as typing. This is why we emphasize steady beat activities in each Kindermusik class and provide you with the materials to work on this skill at home.

Steady beat activities also help the child's brain to learn to organize and sets the foundation for pre-math skills. Studies show that elementary students who are taught basic rhythmic notation score higher on fraction tests than students who were simply taught fractions in the traditional way. I think this is because music turns mathematics into a multi-sensory activity. It all starts with steady beat.

Here are some steady beat activities for home:
1. Steady beat movement Turn on the music and pretend to be a marching band. March, stomp, or jump to the music. See how many different actions can be done to a steady beat. If you have them, use scarves, steamers, hoops or a parachute like we would use in Kindermusik class.

Listen to sounds around the house and determine if that particular sound has a steady beat, IE. a dripping faucet, windshield wipers, a ticking clock or beeping microwave. Move to the beat to these sounds. Use the music in your Kindermusik home CD to move to the steady beat. The Kindermusik songs are developmentally chosen to provide the best opportunities for movement and development of steady beat.

Babies who are not yet mobile can begin to learn about steady beat as well. Put them on your lap and bounce to the steady beat. Move them around the room to the steady beat of the music.

Movement to a steady beat allows them to feel and see the steady beat. This is especially true in Kindermusik class where the kids see their peers making a steady beat. In class the children also learn new ways to move to a steady beat by watching each other. In our class we also include circle and line dances where the children actually interact with each other while keeping a steady beat. Making steady beat a social activity helps to solidify the concept in their developing minds

2. Instrument play Pull out the instruments from your Kindermusik home materials or make your own. Using your Kindermusik CD or another CD, use the instruments to keep a steady beat along with the music. This works steady beat with the fine motor skills and allows them to hear the beat that they are making. In Kindermusik class, they can also see the steady beat made by the instruments of their friends.

3. Ball Toss This is one of my favorite activities to do with my beginning piano students. This is a little trick I learned many years ago when I was completing my training for Orff certification. For this preschool activity we use a large, soft ball. I stand across from the student. The object of the game is to pass the ball back and forth to a steady beat. If you pass too quickly, the other person will not be able to anticipate when to catch the ball. If you hold on to the ball too long, the partner has to wait for the ball. First, I demonstrate how to pass the ball to a steady beat while I hold the ball. Then I explain to the preschooler how we have to keep our beat steady or we will not be able to catch the ball. Then we pass the ball back and forth counting "one" for quarter notes. With my older students who are in piano classes or lessons, we eventually create rhythms and pass according to the rhythm. This is a fun steady beat activity that explains the concept of keeping the beat going, allows the student to use gross motor muscles to feel the beat, works for teamwork, allows the student to see the stead beat as it is passed back and forth, and lays the groundwork for counting rhythm. Students ask for this activity again and again in classes.

Kindermusik

We just ended our spring family time class with a great group if kids. After school let out, we had several older siblings join us for a few classes. This past week, we explored the concept of weight. We used scarves to move like feathers and floating leaves, we jumped in hula hoops, and we used the parachute. The older kids wore the scarves like super hero capes or like butterfly wings. It was a lot of fun.

We are finishing up our Sign and Sing night class and have 2 classes left on Thursday evenings at 6:00 pm. Come join us for a preview class!

Our next term begins in July. We will have a short Sign and Sing term and a short ABC Music and Me term on Thursday afternoons. Enroll Now!

We also have piano classes for all ages over the summer. See my piano website for a full schedule.

Up and Down

Today in Kindermusik, a lot of our activities were focused on directional vocabulary like "up", "down", "out", and even "sit", "lie down" and "roll over." These activities have an educational purpose.

0 to 18 months: directional vocabulary helps kids at this age to form concrete impressions of the words. They hear the term, see the other kids doing, and do it themselves. Moms might also assist their younger child by doing the activity TO them. For instance, for the word, "up" you might use your hand to scamper up your child's back like the squirrel we sang about today. That way if your child is not yet doing the motion, they can still feel it on their body.

18 months- 5 years: The older children really caught on to the spoken directions today! Using the directional vocabulary challenges them to listen and respond to aural cues. Add in new vocabulary to this activity at home. In class, we did many other movements in addition to the directional terms listed above. Try "roly poly" and home with shakers, sticks or other objects. Have your child come up with new activities for "walk along rover" and "little squirrel."

In addition to the directional vocabulary, we also worked on a bit of ear training in class. The slide whistle was used to demonstrate low and high pitches. Young children often confuse the term high and low with loud and soft. This is probably because we talk about turning the radio "up" or "down." Find different sounds around the house that are high in pitch and draw them to your child's attention. Do the same with low pitches. Then see if your child can imitate not only the pitch made but the sounds. This works on phonemic awareness and pitch discernment at the same time.

By physically reacting to the slide whistle, we were also creating a visual and kinethetic demonstration of sound. This not only gives your child a creative outlet to respond to the differences in pitch, but it also helps your child to make the connection between high and low.