Parenting Tip:  Use music to spark your toddler’s imagination!   Why? Making music is a VERY creative process with tempo, timbre, meter, instrumentation, and expression.  We start EARLY to develop creativity with music, because it will have a direct impact on your child's potential for success, later. Play is the most important activity of early childhood.  So even when it looks like a child is “just” playing, there’s really some serious learning and developing happening as a result of the play.    How? Make some play food!  Enjoy seeing the different foods (real and imagined!) that your child comes up with.  How will she bring these new play foods into her imaginary world?  Then, see if your child can remember which fruit was where, as he plays the Market Matchup game!   Want to Learn More? On our blog, read about the stages of play, and see more about how music and movement activities support your child's creative thinking skills!   Kindermusik 7-year continuum: In Kindermusik, babies are danced around the room by parents & adults, and are shown different ways to move, play, and sing.  As toddlers, children explore ways to move, play, and sing, by imitating the adults, and adding some of their own ideas.  In Kindermusik preschool classes, children take ownership of their learning by leading their own activities, within the framework of different musical & imaginary worlds being explored.  Big kids in Young Child classes use their creative experiences from early childhood to improvise, and compose their own music – and to add their own interpretation to existing songs ("should I play loud here, or quiet?").