Our Babies and their Brains

    Neuroscience has made some truly amazing discoveries in our recent history. One of the most interesting areas of study is that of  brain development of babies and young children. It used to be the common belief that children were all born as empty slates and it was up to us as parents and teachers to "fill them up". Recent study is beginning to teach us otherwise.
    Essentially, each of our brains are filled with networks of connections somewhat like a connect-the-dot picture, called neural pathways. Our babies are all born with the basic grid to get them started with a spattering of  neurons and synapses already developing. By 8 months of age, according to an article called "Starting Smart", a baby could have 1,000 trillion synapses in his brain! Isn't that mind-blowing! At this point, there are literally endless possibilities for what your baby is capable of learning.
    Of course, this doesn't stay this way. The brain will begin to prune whichever synapses and neural pathways that are not being used as a means of strengthening the pathways that have already been established. Vision and visual comprehension, for example, is one of the very first senses that get "hard-wired" into our brains. If a new baby has a visual abnormality, the longer it takes to address and correct the problem the higher the chance that the child may never fully recover. Or if a child has a speech impediment, if not corrected by around 4 years of age, their brain starts to loose the ability to correct the problem and may struggle with the impediment for the rest of their lives.
    On the other hand, the more that neural pathways are being stimulated and used regularly, the stronger the connections and therefore, a healthier brain. It's like a footpath that gets used every day. It's clear and safe to walk on and gets you where you need to go efficiently. If that footpath becomes neglected and unused,  it soon gets overgrown, difficult to walk on, and may disappear all together. The more pathways, the more options and diversity we have. 
    Up to around the age of 5, it is to be considered the "critical period"  where babies and children are the most responsive to learning and proper development. This is where us, as parents, can do our best to get these synapses snapping in our childrens' brains. It's as simple as talking (or singing!) to our babies as much as we can. This is crucial to their language and social development. Move with your little ones. Wave your hands around, play finger games or do a silly dance. That covers their spatial and cognitive development. Read to them. Show them what you're reading. This will encourage a healthy start to literacy. You get the picture.

    Now, these are all practices that are fairly common knowledge and for the most part, we do them instinctively as parents. The real home-run hitter is that research shows that children will learn all these things to their fullest potential when sharing these experiences with someone they love and trust....that's you. Babies need and crave personal contact and touch. From the very beginning, babies will prefer human stimuli over any other. Did you know that babies who are less than 24 hours old show active brain activity when hearing their mother's voice? Looks like our little bundles are so much more than just "empty slates". Pretty cool, eh?

All Things Fresh & New

   Spring is in the air! I have always envisioned Spring as a sort of Pied Piper that causes us all to suddenly start dancing and singing as if we were marionettes in a play. It's a funny image that I think every Spring and it always makes me smile. Everyone is happier and life seems to hold more promise and opportunity.
   Life is good for me and my little family. Our second son, Zander Frederic was born Dec 6,2010 and he is a constant source of joy. I am thoroughly enjoying being a Mom and love the extra time to spend with my boys. With the coming of Spring, I'm also very excited to have renewed my Kindermusik license and look forward to taking some more classes and preparing for teaching this fall.
   My plans are still to provide another Demo Day this summer in my hometown of St. Pierre-Jolys, hopefully for early August if everything goes as planned. It's a great way to come and experience what a typical Kindermusik class would be like and to be able to meet me face to face before committing to a full semester class. I will post when I have a fixed date and look forward to seeing some familiar faces and making some new friends.

Boys vs Girls

I've just read a very intriguing article on the difference in the brain development of boys vs. girls. In my recent classes, I had a group that was equally split between boys & girls and noticed an obvious distinction between what the boys were interested in and what the girls gravitated towards. I try hard not to lump children into their specific sexes and not limit my expectations to what I think their genders would dictate. You can't assume that all girls love dolls and all boys love cars. This past semester was based all around different modes of transportation & movement. It was very apparent what interested the boys. They loved the gross motor movements of pretending to be cars, airplanes, trains & pretty much anything that allowed them to moved around the room with drive & gusto. The girls, on the other hand,  loved when we had free dance with scarves, playing with chimes & bells and rhymes with finger games. It really got me thinking as to how much our influence affects their development and how much is simply hard-wired in their brains before they're even born. Here's the link to the article if you'd like to read for yourselves.Brain Development: Is the Difference between Boys & Girls all their heads?

Change of Seasons, End of Spring Classes

Spring classes are suddenly nearing an end. Next week we wind things up and it's all gone by so quickly. Many different thoughts run through my head as I evaluate what my first full semester of teaching classes was like. Of course, with it being my first full semester, I had a great deal of nerves to contend with and also a number of things that I will do differently next time. I am confident that the lessons I've learned will all make me a better teacher in the future.
Overall, I had a fantastic time! It was a such a joy to watch each child grow and progress throughout the semester and see them interact and participate in their own special ways. I had children throughout my age demographic of 18 months - 3 years and it was so delightful to watch each child respond to the activities and lessons according to their developmental stages and unique perspectives. It was great to hear some be able to sing every word to their favorite songs or discover something new about the world around them in one of my classes. The best part, above all, is seeing great big smiles and hearing their precious giggles when we'd participate in a favorite song or activity. To all my families who've participated in my class; Thank-you so much for allowing me to be a small part of each your worlds for the past four months. I sincerely hope that you've all had as much fun as I've had and I can't wait to hopefully see you again when I resume my classes next year (Fall 2011)! Have a great summer everyone and keep on singing and dancing!

Growing in a Slightly Different Direction...For Now.

After a great deal of thought and deliberation, I've decided to make some changes to my Kindermusik schedule as of this summer. The very next day after I posted my Summer Camp Classes announcement, my husband and I found out that we were expecting our second child! I was hopeful that I'd still be able to teach classes for this summer, but decided it would be best to hold off. I'm due in the beginning of December and hope to resume classes for the fall of 2011. At that point, I'll most likely be providing a few core classes in my home town and then plan to launch a studio location in Steinbach, MB for the new year of 2012. I hope to be able to provide a full spectrum of classes at that time and look forward to really stretching out and bringing the Kindermusik experience to as many families as I can. I'll be posting any changes to these plans as time goes along and will be sure to give everyone a heads up as to when I'll be starting up again and which classes I'll be teaching.
I'm sad to have to put my classes on hold when I only just got started, but I'm so very excited to become a mother again and want to cherish every moment of motherhood that I can. I've greatly enjoyed teaching my music & movement classes and I can't think of a better job to return to than Kindermusik, where I can sing and dance with young families again.

Summer Camp Adventures Classes

   I'm so excited that Spring has more-or-less sprung that I can't help thinking about summer activities and all the fun times to be had. Seeing as last summer left a lot to be desired, I'm eager to make up for lost time. There's camping, fishing, days at the beach, visiting the zoo babies, and maybe taking in a summer festival or two.
   All this summer fun I plan to spill into my Kindermusik classes as well. I want to provide Adventures Summer Day Camp Classes. The format for this class is quite different in that they are five 1 1/2 hour classes as a Monday-Friday format or maybe a weekly style, whichever seems to work best for those that are interested. The themes are based on all the discoveries that summer has to offer through song, rhyme, story time and extras include doing some crafts and a snack time. I'm hoping to be able to have these classes available for the first 2 weeks of August. This is a wonderful way to experience Kindermusik in a new and different way or to try it out for the first time without committing to an entire semester. Following is a brief description of what classes I'll be making available:

Busy Days—newborn to 1.5 years -- Set your baby's day to classical music. With a little more Tchaikovsky in your "Twinkle, Twinkle" repertoire discover new ways baby benefits from the classics as you develop an appreciation for the world's most respected music. Each lesson features new activities and songs that the parent can sing for all the places baby and mom go together—the store, the playground, the doctor, and more.
Home Materials: Busy Day board book, Home CD, Village cage bell instrument, and poster.

Creatures in My Backyard—1.5 years to 3 years
Give children something to sing about in their own backyards. Be the flower from the "seed's" perspective. Run and jump in rain puddles made from hula hoops. Snack on whole wheat mini-waffles dipped in honey, just like a real honeycomb. Shoo real flies and sing "Shoo Fly."
Home Materials: Home CD, Bunny hand puppet, and a set of 5 picture folders.

Confetti Days!—3 years to 5 years -- Throw a new party every day. Ride a carousel inside the classroom. Play a balancing game and walk on the web of ropes. Do a musical move and freeze. Learn colors and sing the Spanish song "De Colures," "Pop, Goes the Weasel," and "Looby Loo."

Home Materials: Home CD, pair of confetti bell instruments, story kit, and a set of 5 picture folders.

*Heads up to those Kindermusik families already enrolled in my classes.  As part of my incentive program, I'm offering to give you a FREE class towards the next semesters enrollment for each family that enrolls in any of my Kindermusik programs on your referral. That works out to be nearly $10.00 off the total tuition!

Have a Happy Spring & Easter Everyone!

Fascinating ways that Music affects the Development of our Brains!

Check out this link:
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