Pawing the Piano

Nora, The Piano-Playing Cat at ravenswingstudio



Hap tip to Lori Burkhardt, Kindermuisk educator in St Louis County, MO.

No Classes on Saturday, March 3, 2007

Reminder: There will be no Kindermusik classes held this Saturday, March 3, 2007.

The Verdi Requiem concert will be held this Saturday, March 3, 2007 @ 8PM with pre-talk @ 7PM at the Sacramento Community Center Theater.
Tickets are still available for purchase! Sacramento Community Center Theater is located on 1301 L Street.

P.S. I will be singing in the 5th row of the soprano section :)

Rossini-- Verdi's True Inspiration

Gioachino RossiniGiuseppe Verdi
"A great name has been lost to the world! His was the widest known, the most popular reputation of our time, he was the glory of Italy!" Verdi's statement upon hearing news of Rossini's death in 1868.

According to the Sac Bee's Feb. 25th 2007 pre-concert feature paper article, Verdi dedicated this 211-page vocal work to the Italian literary novelist, Alessandro Manzoni, but the true inspiration for the Requiem was actually Gioachino Rossini, the revered Italian composer best known for his operas.

Among Rossini's[1] work: the Duetto buffo di due gatti-- the Comic Duet of Two Cats featured in Our Time Fiddle dee dee CD1 Track 6! Surprise, surprise!

[1] By definition, Rossini is credited for the cats' meowing duet, but historians aren't completely certain of its authenticity.

Beat the Drum

Kindermusik families know just how much babies and children love to drum in class! But did you know that there are documented cognitive, emotional and health benefits associated with playing the drums?

According to PressZoom : "Drumming increases heart rate and blood flow just like an aerobic exercise. The process of drumming engages both the linear, ( rational left brain ) and the creative, ( intuitive right brain ). It slows the brain waves to around 8 cycles per second, the exact frequency of the earth."

“Playing the drums makes the brain think in a way that very few activities can,” said Pat Brown, International Drum Month chairman and Percussion Marketing Council co-executive director. "...the most recent study shows that being constantly exposed to this type of brain activity can actually improve one's IQ level.”

And according to Winston-Salem Chronicles Set. 27, 2001 article, "modern scientific research shows that drumming and music aid in cognitive, emotional social, language and physical development. According to neurologists, drumming also helps reduce stress and improve immune system function." Hat tip to HealthBeat.

If you're interested in purchasing drums for yourself or your children, check out Remo drum makers for over 45 years.

Rum, tum, tum. Beat the drum!

Sacramento Choral Society & Orchestra Singathon

Join the SCSO at their Annual Singathon Fundraiser!

Thursday, February 22 - 6:30 - 9:00 PM
(In the Mall in front of Macy's Women's store)


Conductor Donald Kendrick leads the spirited SCSO members in 2.5 hours of Broadway showtunes to raise money to support classical music in our community.


Children young and old join in the fun to support classical music

Funds raised help offset Spring 2007 concert production expenses so that families can enjoy classical music performances at reasonable prices.

Why Support the SCSO Via Their Annual Singathon?

The SCSO continues to earn respect and recognition throughout northern California for many reasons:

Winner of:
The Arts Excellence Award - Arts & Business Council of Sacramento

Best of the Best Outstanding Nonprofit of the Year 2002

Arts Executive Of the Year Award - Arts & Business Council of Sacramento

Best Example of Talent & Efficiency - Sacramento Magazine - 2003

City & County of Sacramento Resolutions - Spring 2005

Certificate of Appreciation for Community Service in the Arts
California Senator Barbara Boxer - November 2006

Carnegie Hall Debut - May 18, 2003

International European Concert Tour - July 2004 - Munich, Prague, Vienna, Budapest - Self-Funded

International Concert Tour of China - July 2006 - Beijing, Tianjin, Xi'ian, Jinan (Sacramento's Sister City) The Great Wall - Self-Funded

* Moderate ticket prices for greater community access to live performance.

Conductor Donald Kendrick and the SCSO Board ask that you join in supporting the Sacramento Choral Society and Orchestra, one of Sacramento's premier performing arts organizations! Please make your gift today! The SCSO is a 501(c)-3 non-profit; your donation may be tax-deductible. Your donation will help the SCSO to expand an awareness of live performance and classical music in the region in many ways:

* Supports SCSO's growing educational and community outreach programs.Supports production costs that average $80,000 - $90,000 per concert.Helps the SCSO keep its low ticket prices, for family attendance at SCSO concerts.

* Keeps the SCSO moving forward as Sacramento's best performing arts value.

Make an Online Donation - or mail your donation to:
Sacramento Choral Society & Orchestra
4025A Bridge Street
Fair Oaks, CA 95628

Help the SCSO reach their $30,000.00 goal. Hope to see you and as many Kindermusik families there!!!

Staying Healthy

In my many years of teaching and working with children, I have inevitably gotten sick (cold, flu, stomach viruses...) every year with the exception of this year-- so what's different? It's the Kindermusik families at Musikandmotion! You have all been conscientious about keeping yourselves and your sick children at home, and thereby keeping me, and all the Kindermusik children and adults in class healthy.

In the past week, two out of every 8 Kindermusik families missed class because of a cold or flu...

According to US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, "keeping hands clean is one of the most important steps we can take to avoid getting sick and spreading germs to others. It is best to wash your hands with soap and clean running water for 20 seconds. However, if soap and clean water are not available, use an alcohol-based product to clean your hands. Alcohol-based hand rubs significantly reduce the number of germs on skin and are fast acting."

Help yourself and your children to the handsanitizer on the welcome table before and after class-- you can always wash hands before and after class, too. I also make a point to clean all the instruments after each use, and separate those that have been mouthed. I especially like Clorox Anywhere HardSurface spray as it leaves no chemical residue.

Another great product is SquidSoap. This product leaves a small stamp on your hand (sort of like the Kindermusik stamp after class) and requires you to wash for 15-20 seconds to remove it-- a great way to motivate (and train) your children to wash hands thoroughly and for you to check that they did! Hat tip to The Parenting Weblog.

Stay healthy, everyone, and thank you for helping me stay healthy this flu season!

Little Miss Ali

Introducing our very own Miss Ali. Recognize the intro song Story Time, before the Knock, Knock song, and The End? Sure takes me back to Milk & Cookies! Thanks for sharing, Kristin-- I love Ali's rendition!!!

Toddler milestone: Talking

We do a lot of playful talking called vocal play in Kindermusik class to help children develop language, social and musical skills.

Here's what the Baby Center editorial staff at babycenter.com had to share about the milestones toddlers experience in the areas of talking:

"Talking is inextricably linked to understanding speech. By listening to others, your child learns what words sound like and how to put a sentence together. As a baby, he discovered first how to make sounds, then how to make those sounds into real words ("mama" and "dada" may have slipped out as early as 4 or 5 months). By the time he was a year old, he was diligently trying to imitate the sounds around him (though you probably heard him babbling away in a lingo that only he could understand). Now comes a period of extraordinary growth, as you watch your toddler go from speaking a few simple words to asking questions, giving directions, and even telling you stories he's made up."

And interestingly enough if you are teaching your child to be bilingual, " the number of words he can speak will be split between the two languages he's learning." Click here to read more about talking in a bilingual environment.

You can read the full article here: babycenter.com

How to Boost Your Baby's Brain Power

Alice Sterling Honig, Ph. D. at Syracuse University offers 20 ways to help nurture and develop your baby's brain power. Among them:

1. "Sing songs... The body motions and finger play will help your baby integrate sounds with large and small motor actions. Songs also enhance your child's learning of rhythms, rhymes, and language patterns."
2. "Use body massage to decrease your infant's stress and enhance her feelings of well-being and emotional security. Loving touches promote growth in young babies."
3. "Have meaningful conversations. Respond to infant coos with delighted vocalizations. Slowly draw out your syllables in a high-pitched voice as you exclaim, 'Pretty baby!' This talk is called 'parentese.' The areas in the brain for understanding speech and producing language need your rich input."
4. "Build trust by being attentive and focused. Babies who are securely attached to you emotionally will be able to invest more life energy in the pleasures of exploration, learning, and discovery."
5. "Express joy and interest in your baby. Let your body language, your shining eyes, your attentiveness to babbling and baby activities, and your gentle caresses and smiles validate the deeply lovable nature of your little one."

Hmmm, this sounds a lot like our Kindermusik Village classes! You can read her full article here: 20 Ways to Boost Your Child's Brain Power

Alice Sterling Honig, Ph.D. Alice Sterling Honig is a professor emerita of child development at Syracuse University. She has done extensive research and written books and articles on infants and toddlers, language development, child care practices, preschooler social development, fathering, and the effects of divorce on children. Annually, she teaches workshops for caregivers of infants and toddlers, and she has lectured widely. Dr. Honig is a licensed psychologist and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the Society for Research in Child Development.

Moving to Learn!

From moving "curvy, straight and round and around" in Village to "sit down, lie down and roll over" in Our Time, and crossing the body's mid-line in "The Broom Man's sweep'em clean" in Imagine That! children are invited to experience and explore movement concepts in our weekly Kindermusik class.

Aristotle once said, "What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing." Or by moving!

Movement is critical to learning and in the development of your child's cognitive growth. According to Rae Pica, "it is now understood that, because a child's earliest learning is based on motor development, so too is much of the knowledge that follows. The cerebellum, the part of the brain previously associated with motor control only, is now known to be, as Eric Jensen, author of numerous books on brain-based learning, puts it, a "virtual switchboard of cognitive activity." Study after study demonstrated a connection between the cerebellum and such cognitive functions as memory, spatial orientation, attention, language, and decision making among others."

Pica also talks about how children benefit from early experiences with movement. When children are given opportunities to internalize movement concepts such as curvy, straight, up or down, they can then transfer that knowledge to more abstract contexts such as forming curvy or straight lines in letters, numbers and drawings. You can read her full article here: More Movement, Smarter Kids

Bow Wow Wow

Bow wow wow,
Who's dogs art thou?
We are Miss Sunny's dogs,
Bow wow wow.
Woof!
From left: Lucy- 11 mo. & Ricky - 2 yrs.

Design Your Own City

Venice

Check out this cool site from Tate Kids - Imaginary City where your Imagine That! preschoolers can build their very own cities, in various time period and geographic setting! I hope to hear all about your imaginative creations as we explore the theme of cities in spring semester of Imagine That! Cities! Busy Places- Friendly Faces for 3 1/2 to 5 year olds! See you all Monday, February 5, 2007 @ 4PM!

Animal Appeal

A Kid's Best Friend by Maya Ajmera & Alex Fisher

Why are animals such a perennial favorite with young children? Could it be the way in which these furry creatures look so cute and cuddly? Or perhaps it’s the manner in which they move so freely and effortlessly. Or maybe it’s all that grunting and mooing that naturally prompt children to imitate them.

The spring theme of Our Time: Fiddle dee-dee is animals (specifically, farm animals). And as many of you know, I am a huge animal lover—a proud mother of two white furry Maltese babies: one named Ricky and the other named Lucy!

Looking back the animal lover in me began as a child when some of my best friends growing up were cats, dogs, birds and fish, particularly when my family had to move across major continents and states. So here's my theory as to why animals have such a great appeal to young children (and adults, too). Animals can teach us, humans, so much about empathy, kindness, love and respect. And children naturally gravitate toward those they can learn a great deal from!

So let's celebrate the wonder and enchantment of the animal kingdom with our toddlers and young preschoolers this spring semester! Our Time Fiddle dee-dee begins Saturday, January 27th, 2007. It's Our Time to sing together again!!!