Here are some concepts children learn through movement and music activities and ways that you can explore these concepts at home.
Tempo
Tempo (or speed) is as central a concept to music as it is to transportation! Young children who are learning to control and coordinate their bodies’ movements are naturally delighted by activities where they get to speed up, slow down, and stop and start.
Playful practice allows children to have fun while they master these tricky new skills.
Try this at home! Find some songs with both fast and slow tempos. Challenge your children to find ways to move with each tempo (while you move along with them!) Children can also practice bouncing, singing, and playing instruments quickly and slowly.
Stop & Go
Stop and go activities plant the seeds for a skill called inhibitory control, or the ability to stop oneself and wait. This, in turn, helps build executive functioning, an important skill set of planning skills.
Practicing inhibitory control as part of music activities (i.e., move-and-stop, or “time to put your instruments away”) helps children build skills that can be applied to other important developmental areas like self-discipline, cooperation, and turn-taking.
Try this at home! Download the Kindermusik App (it’s free!) and find the song “Walk and Stop!” Your children will love moving along with the music and the added challenge of stopping when the music stops.
Up & Down
Up and down usually describe the direction something is going. An airplane can go up into the sky. A train can go down a hill. Sounds can go up and down, too!
Listening to high sounds, low sounds, and sounds that move up and down between high and low is fun, and helps children develop important listening skills. It also helps them make connections between abstract concepts like up/down and concrete examples of those concepts. (And if they imitate the sounds with their voices, that’s great for vocal skills, confidence, and self-expression, too!)
Try this at home! Have fun dancing along with the concepts of up and down. Find the song “Gonna Shake Out My Hands” on the Kindermusik App for a true multi-sensory dance break!
If you needed more of a reason to get moving with your child, consider this: movement activities support your child’s physical development such as locomotor skills and balance. And combining movement with vocabulary enhances language development. Learning through movement truly helps light up your child’s brain!
Who’s ready to get up and move?
Looking for ways to boost your child’s learning in the early years? Come check out a Kindermusik class! Classes are now enrolling for ages 0-7. In person and virtual options are available.
About our program: Kindermusik recognizes that the earliest years are the most critical time for brain growth and development. Research has shown that nothing provides a better workout for the brain & body like the study, practice, and discipline of making music. Kindermusik activities are designed to encourage multi-sensory learning, which employs and integrates several senses at once, stimulating multiple areas of the brain.
Children experience music of varying styles, genres, and cultures. They interact with other peers and engage in movement, rhythm, and vocal activities that develop far more than just music skills. Our approach to early childhood education primes children for success in school and in life.
