Want to learn more about your child’s musical development? Read on…. How does Kindermusik class help to develop my child’s musical skills? Below we’ve outlined the musical profile of a 3-5 year old child and included ways that we practice these skills in Kindermusik class each week.

• Is developing beat awareness -à We practice beat awareness using our talking drum where we walk, run, and jumpto the beat of the drum
• Can match beat to external sound source in non-locomotor ways -à We practice matching beat when we explore sticks and other instruments, then play along to songs on our Home CD, such as “This Old Man”
• Enjoys the interactive nature of circle games -à This week we played “What Shall We Do?” where children took turns sharing their ideas for playing outside and then we “sang” their ideas as a group in the song.
• Is becoming increasingly successful with the rhythmic and tonal components of songs -àThe Grasshopper Park Story has been a great tool for exploring rhythm and tone. We can already see improvement in the children’s ability to retell the story using rhythm and tonal components, which means that they’ve been telling the story at home!
• Is beginning to sing accurately in a limited range -àWith each class the children are singing more on pitch. That’s one reason we repeat songs from week to week is to give the children practice at matching pitch.
• Can differentiate between the singing voice and the speaking voice -à We incorporate both chants and songs in class to practice differentiating between speech and singing.
• Is beginning to understand musical concepts such as: Loud/Quiet, High/Low, Long/Short, Fast/Slow -à The ball play song, Do as I’m Doing, lends itself well to explore these concepts. Plus our glissando exploration has given us an opportunity to practice high/low voices.