Dear Our Time Parent:
Most experts agree that the child’s emotional development is dependent upon the care received at an early age and that the parts of the brain responsible for emotional growth are very sensitive to parental feedback and handling. Kindermusik offers a wonderful opportunity for you to be a vital part of your child’s maturation. Singing, laughing, playing and dancing together all can be a part of your relationship.
We will begin some new songs next week, but at home, continue to delight in singing together favorites from these past few weeks. Sing Bells Are Ringing, laugh as you wiggle to Washing Machine, play “grocery store” as you chant The Grocery Store, and dance high and low while listening to Great Big House.
To market, to market to buy.... Take a few index cards, grocery store flyer, glue. Cut out some of the food pictures from the flyer. Have your child help you glue the pictures on to the index cards. Have fun with the poem as your child picks out the pictures. Your child will love this simple rhyming game.
All young children, even those with only minimal hearing, have a powerful, almost riveting affinity for music. Research has shown that the fetus responds to musical cues from the middle trimester onward and never stops attending to it afterward, and infants are the same. By toddlerhood, play with music is so complex and rich, it probably teaches more economically than any formal kind of instruction. The neurobiological processes underlying the appreciation of music-related play and interaction involve the brain pathways for:
• Memory
• Hearing
• Balance
• Motor control
• Hormonal secretion
• Cognition
• Emotion
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Pretend play not only enhances intellectual development but exercises all facets of the developing child. Here's how:
There are simple things that parents or caregivers can do to encourage a toddler's developing pretend play abilities.
Read more....Toddler Pretend Play
