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MUSIC AND MOVEMENT

How to know when children are engaged in music anc movement in the classroom

Paying attention (alert, tracking with their eyes)

Listening (as opposed to chatting, or sleeping)

Following requests (participating, Total Physical Response (TPR), storytelling, Simon Says)

Reacting (laughing, crying, shouting, etc.)

Interacting with other students, gesturing and moving

When children are moving their bodies, actively singing, keeping the beat with their hands or instruments, dancing, or acting out a song—it ensures that they that are optimally engaged in the music experience

With the variety of active participation activities we experience in class, children stay focused and time flies!

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/student-engagement-definition-ben-johnson

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Q: Will your classes help to make my child smarter?

There's a growing body of research suggesting that early exposure to music not only enhances your child's ability to create and enjoy music, but increases brain plasticity. Plasticity is flexibility in brain function and enhances many aspects of brain activity, and also facilitates recovery from brain injury.

Q: Why do your programs involve parents and caregivers?

A: Parents and other primary care givers play a critical role in their child's music development. We not only provide parents with music and activities to take home and repeat throughout the week, but we also encourage meaningful social interaction around the music.
*Mirror: Observe closely and acknowledge your child's emerging musical expressiveness. When you see your child doing something new, imitate and enlarge upon those ideas to reinforce your child's creativity.
*Model: Provide a shining example by modeling an enthusiastic engagement with music. Adapt the songs to suit your everyday routines and create musical conversations with your child.
*Touch: Physical touch provides powerful stimulation to neural pathways. Bounce, lift, tickle and dance during music time.

Q: My child won't sit still in a circle. Can he still benefit from your class?

A: Some children want to run; others want to spend the class no more than a foot away from the teacher; some will sit in laps; while others want to observe from a cozy corner in the room. At The Music Class we recognize that there are many different learning styles, and we encourage parents to let the children be where they are comfortable. A typical class may have all of these different types of children, but all children have one thing in common: they are all watching, listening, and learning from us.

We have found that regardless of your child's learning style, the more frequently your child listens to our music at home, the more likely he or she is to stay focused in class. So be sure to do your homework by listening to the music every day!

Q: How do you keep such young children focused for 45 minutes?

A: One of the secrets to teaching music successfully is to maximize the amount of active participation involved. When children are moving their bodies, actively singing, keeping the beat with their hands or instruments, dancing, or acting out a song-it ensures that they that are optimally engaged in the music experience. In fact, research shows that infants can perceive the beat more readily if bounced to it. With the variety of active participation activities we experience in class, children stay focused and time flies!

Q: My baby is 4 months old. Can she benefit from class now, or should I wait until she can walk?

There is a growing body of research to that suggests the younger a child is, the more she is learning. Even though a baby cannot run, clap or sing in class, her brain is developing at a faster rate than the brains of the big kids. Additionally, research suggests that during the second 6 months of life the brain is already prioritizing: discarding the neural information pathways not stimulated by its environment. So yes, the best possible time to start Music Pups is when your child is a baby!

Another way to think of this is to compare learning to speak with learning music. In the same way that talking to your baby from birth is critical to your child's language development, exposing your child to music from birth benefits her music development. Of course your baby cannot show you how much she is learning now. Be patient! Let her feel the beat, listen to you sing, and observe in class. Absorbing musical sounds is the first step in music development. When she becomes a toddler she will surely blossom. Then you will see first hand the benefits of coming to class during that precious first year.

RESEARCH FACTS

BENEFIT OF INTERACTIVE MUSIC CLASSES ON INFANTS: Researchers at McMaster University in Canada found that infants who participated in parent/child interactive music classes had a better understanding of music and improved social development compared to infants who listened to background music only.

In the first study of its kind, researchers assigned 6-month old babies to one of two types of musical experiences. In one group the babies participated in a parent/child interactive music class involving singing, movement, instrument play and a take home CD. (Sound familiar?) In the other group the children listened to music from Baby Einstein CDs in the background while involved in art and play activities, and received the same CDs to take home and listen to. At 12 months, the babies who participated in the interactive music class showed a greater understanding of tonal pitch structure and an enhanced response to music than the babies who listened to background music. In addition, they showed less distress in unusual situations, communicated better and smiled more! Trainor et al. 2012. Becoming musically enculturated: effects of music classes for infants on brain and behavior. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1252:129-138

INFANTS DETECT THE BEAT IN MUSIC: A 2009 study showed that newborns can process music even if they don't show an outward response. Researchers played consistent percussive rhythm patterns and then occasionally changed the pattern for newborns who were sleeping. The newborns were able to detect the change! How do we know? Tiny sensors on the surface of their heads were able to detect a change in their brain waves. Winkler, I., G. Haden, O. Ladinig, et al. Newborn; infants detect the beat in music. Proc. Natl. Acad.Sci. 2009; 106: 2468-2471.

MOVEMENT INFLUENCES INFANT RHYTHM PERCEPTION: In this study, seven month-old Infants were bounced to a specific beat (either in duple or triple meter). Afterward they paid attention longer to music with the same beat they were bounced to. Infants that listened to the same music but weren't bounced did not show a preference for either type of beat. This demonstrates that infants of this age can perceive the beat more readily if bounced to it.
Phillips-Silver J, Trainor LJ. Feeling the beat: Movement influences infant rhythm perception. Science 2005;308:1430.

A study of children 5-7 demonstrates that musical training results in more connections (neurons) forming between the right-brain and the left-brain. Researchers looked at images of the brains of the children before assigning them to one of three groups: high-practicing, low-practicing, and no music instruction. There were no differences in left-brain, right-brain connections prior to the musical instruction. However, after two years of musical instruction and practice, these children had more connections than children not given musical instruction. The children assigned to the high practicing group had the most number of connections. Schlaug G, Forgeard M, Zhu L, Norton A, Norton A, Winner E. Training-induced neuroplasticity in young children. The Neurosciences and Music III: Disorders and Plasticity. Ann NY Acad Sci. 2009;1169:205-8.

ENVIRONMENT EFFECTS BRAIN DEVELOPMENT: Nobel prize winning research by doctors David Hubel and Tortsen Wiesel of the Harvard Medical School found that if a healthy kitten or monkey was raised with one eyelid sutured closed during the first few months of its life, the animal would be permanently blinded in that eye. This research from the 1960's documented the fact that the brain is not fully developed at birth. Instead brain development continues during the first years of life and the environment directly effects that development.
Kandel E, Schwartz J, and Jessel M. Principles of Neural Science. Appleton & Lange 1992

USE IT OR LOOSE IT CONCEPT: Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle compared language perception between Japanese and American infants. They investigated the ability of these infants to distinguish between the sounds of R and L. (R and L are both used in English, but there is no L sound in the Japanese language, only R.) They found that at six months of age English and Japanese infants could equally distinguish between R and L sounds. By 12 months, the Japanese children had lost the ability to distinguish the difference between R and L sounds. Meanwhile, at 12 months, the American children had become better at hearing the difference between the two sounds.

How does this relate to music? This study exemplifies how quickly and dramatically the human brain is developing during the first year of life. During the first six months the brain is receptive to all sounds. By the second six months the brain is already prioritizing: discarding the ability to distinguish sounds that are not part of its environment, and reinforcing the ability to distinguish sounds that it hears regularly.

Since music and language are both sound based, one could hypothesize that a similar process occurs with music. Exposure to a wide variety of musical sounds and adequate repetition of those sounds between the ages of six and twelve months may have a lasting impact on the brain's ability to perceive those sounds. Lack of musical stimulation during this sensitive time may make it more challenging for the brain to understand musical sounds in the future.
The Secret Life of The Brain. Richard Restak, M.D. The Dana Press and Joseph Henry Press, 2001

RHYTHM AND MOVMENT BRAIN CONNECTION: Music educators have long believed that one of the best ways to teach rhythm is through movement. We're now seeing the science behind this concept come to light. Dr. John Iversen, researcher at UC San Diego (and a long time drummer), is doing studies that suggest the perception of rhythm involves not just the part of the brain that processes sound, but also the part of the brain that controls movement. Yes, there's a reason we jump, run, skip, twirl, and shake instruments in class. Each way we can comfortably move our bodies relates to corresponding rhythms we can more accurately produce. It's exciting to see the science developing that shows this connection!

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The Music Class - Early Childhood Music & Movement Classes - Frequently Asked Questions

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Q: Will your classes help to make my child smarter? There's a growing body of research suggesting that early exposure to music not only enhances your child's ability to create and enjoy music, but increases brain plasticity. Plasticity is flexibility in brain function and enhances many aspects of brain activity, and also facilitates recovery from brain injury.

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MUSIC AND MOVEMENT

How music  and movement promote children's development?

A) Social

- Music is a creative experience which involves expression of feelings. Children often do not have the words to express themselves and need positive ways to release their emotions.

-Music transmits culture and is an avenue by which beloved songs, rhymes, and dances can be passed down from one generation to another.

- Music is a social activity which involves family and community participation. Children love to sing and dance at home, school, and at church.

B) Physical

- Music evokes movement, and children delight in and require movement for their development and growth.

- Developmentally appropriate music activities involve the whole child-the child's desire for language, the body's urge to move, the brain's attention to patterns, the ear's lead in initiating communication, the voice's response to sounds, as well as the eye-hand coordination associated with playing musical instruments.

C) Cognitive

- Music engages the brain while stimulating neural pathways associated with such higher forms of intelligence as abstract thinking, empathy, and mathematics.

- Music's melodic and rhythmic patterns provide exercise for the brain and help develop memory. Who among us learned the ABC's without the ABC song?

- Music is an aural art and young children are aural learners. Since ears are fully mature before birth, infants begin learning from the sounds of their environment before birth.

www.musikgarten.org/music_movement.cfm

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NUR IZZATUL ATIQAH BINTI HUSIN (MUSIC AND MOVEMENT)

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NUR IZZATUL ATIQAH BINTI HUSIN (MUSIC AND MOVEMENT)

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3) Examples of group singing and movement activities in the classroom.

Many students in classrooms find themselves bored and distracted, which often results in poor academic performance. Engaging children physically as they learn is an effective way to reinforce the ideas being taught. Music is a powerful tool that can be used to teach, inspire and heal. By pairing music with movement, you can design activities that will benefit students in multiple ways.

Dance Activity

First, set some ground rules for your class. Explain that they will be moving to music but that they cannot talk, and they must avoid bumping into other people. Choose a wide selection of music from different genres and with various tempos and dynamics. As you play the music, offer verbal prompts for students to follow. For example, tell them to move as if they were a scuba diver, an astronaut or an eagle. Remind students that there is no "right" way to perform the movements and that it is an opportunity for each person to express their own creativity. Once the activity is done, lead the group in a discussion about how it felt to perform certain movements and how the music made them feel in general.

Bounce Activity

This activity works well for groups with limited mobility or mixed groups. Have students sit in a circle and place a large sheet in the middle. The sheet must be large enough so that each member of the group can grab onto a section of the perimeter. Introduce a small, light object to the sheet, such as a foam ball or stuffed animal. Tell the group that once the music starts, they must bounce the object on the sheet, and when the music stops, they must "catch" the object on the sheet without letting it hit the floor. Use a variety of music for this activity. Afterward, discuss how the group had to work as a team to keep the object from hitting the floor and how the nature of the music influenced the way the group worked.

Rhythm Note Activity

Use movement to help teach basic rhythm notes, including quarter notes, whole notes, half notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes and various rests. Teach specific movements for each note. For example, students might stomp a quarter note, pat eighth notes on their laps and snap sixteenth notes. Once students become familiar with the movements for each note, give them series of notes to perform. Turn the activity into a game by dividing the class into teams and have one person at a time draw a card that has a rhythm pattern to be performed. Team members can score points by correctly performing the patterns.

http://www.ehow.com/list_5969626_music-movements-activities.html

4) Steps to do music and movement activities in the classroom.

Step 1

Play music and encourage children to dance freestyle. Use a variety of different types of music and show children some different ways to move to the music. Demonstrate ballet moves for slow music and air guitar for faster songs.

Step 2

Give children musical instruments and show them how to play them. Teach children how to march around the room in a parade or marching band formation as they play their instrument. Illustrate how to walk or march to a beat.

Step 3

Teach children songs and actions. Actions can add depth to a song and will motivate many children to participate in singing, write William M. Anderson and Joy E. Lawrence, authors of "Integrating Music into the Elementary Classroom." Make up actions to popular children's songs and invite children to make up their own as well.

Step 4

Show children how to chant in order to teach them the beat. Make up some chants and teach children to clap to the beat. Encourage children to stomp their feet, sway, wave their arms or march in place once they have mastered clapping to the beat.

Step 5

Play musical games that include movement. Try playing a game such as "Freeze Dance," which encourages children to dance until the music stops, when they are supposed to freeze, recommends Storms. Gather many different instruments and have each child try to imitate a sound an animal makes while acting out the animal. Invite the other children to guess what animal is being imitated.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/207666-how-to-teach-music-movement-to-young-children/

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by Nurul Shafiqah Binti Rani

1. Definition of Storytelling

Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, and images, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation, and instilling moral values. Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include plot, characters, and narrative point of view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling

2. Why Storytelling?

1 ) Story telling is an art that has mental, social and educational benefits on children and people of all ages love stories especially the children.

2 ) It can foster the relationship between the parents and their kids. Any parent can preserve few stories for kids and spend a bit of time for them to tell them stories as many parents find very little time to spend with kids because sometimes they are very busy with their own work.

3 ) Storytelling is an activity that can transfer emotions and feeling. It also can boost thinking capacity.

4 ) Storytelling is a great activity of learning.

At each phase of the development of the story, kids ask questions.

5 ) It is the basic training for academic learning. When the children see images in the book and listen to the stories, kids learn to associate between images and story and later imagination and visuals.

6 ) Storytelling can increased knowledge in children. They get to know about various places, practices in life, relationships and many things through stories.

7 ) Story telling introduces lot of new vocabulary to children. At homes, people communicate with limited number of words. But stories will have academic level vocabulary and lot of newer words for the kid to learn.

8 ) It can enhance the listening skills of children. Kids love to talk instead of listening to anything. But this is not acceptable in the classrooms, thus storytelling gives them with the necessary training to listen and understand instead of talking.

http://www.prokerala.com/kids/activities/storytelling-to-children.php

3.Steps for storytelling

1. Understand your brand and audience; speak in an authentic voice

2. Get your facts straight with 5 Ws. Who is your story about? What happens in your story? When does your story take place? Where does your story take place? Why did your story happen?

3. The power of specifics, details, and imagery

4. Show, don’t tell

5. Know the end at the beginning

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140405112844-40671440-5-steps-to-successful-storytelling