Kindermusik

There is a lot of research that shows the benefits of music in early childhood development. Besides bringing the child joy, it helps with language development, gross and fine motor skills (when dancing and playing simple instruments is involved) and spatial-temporal skills. For these reasons, I've always enrolled our kids in Kindermusik classes. Sometimes we do a class with just me and the child, other times we've enrolled in a "family time" class where the whole family goes together.

All of my kids have loved music, but Charlotte has demonstrated a particular interest in it, and she has done so at the earliest age of any of the three. She has always loved to sway and dance to music - we did a family time class last spring when she was not quite a year old and she loved it. But in the last few months she has started singing - she can't say all the words to the song, but you can definitely make out the tune and tell what song it is. Her favorite is "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." She sings to herself while she plays and she always helps me sing herself to sleep at night. So today was her first "mommy and me" Kindermusik class - she really seemed to enjoy it (jumping right in there with the other kids and not being shy at all) and I expect she will come to love it even more as the semester progresses. Madeleine sings very well for her age too and learns songs very quickly - maybe we will end up with a couple of choir girls! We shall see...