Musical Parenting Tip:  Speak, sing, and make voice sounds with your young baby!
Why?
  • Exchanges of cooings, babblings, smiles, gestures,
    eye contacts, and tonal babbling are all part of vocal play.  As a communication game between adult and
    baby, it’s basic components consist of touching, observing, gazing,
    listening, and imitating. 
  • Pausing and waiting during vocal play demonstrates
    the important conversational element of ‘turn-taking.’ 
  • Baby’s responses to
    verbalizations are a rudimentary form of speech, language
    development, and conversation.

How?
  • Log into your
    Kindermusik @ Home account, and watch the Baby Talk video!  Learn about
    your child’s language processing, and why games with vocal play are important
    to learning. 
  • Refresh your
    knowledge of the sign language for the animals we’ve sung about,
    then add the animal sounds, too.  What is baby’s reaction?  If your
    baby has a vocal response to your sounds, extend the game by copying his
    sounds, yourself! 
  • As you listen
    to your home CD, begin adding animal sounds, when they make sense: 
    crow during I Am Rooster; 
    Add animal sounds to the Old MacDonald
    dance; meow for the cat, moo for the cow, bark for the dog during Hey Diddle Diddle, etc.

Want to Learn More?
On our blog:  Read
how engaging in vocal play with baby can speed your child’s language development!