June at Kindermusik by Jan
How is it already June?! Summer has finally arrived and we’re having a brilliant time for the second half of our summer term with themes celebrating our love of music, and all the things our toddlers can do by themselves!
This month on the blog, we’re giving you some summery inspiration for fun with your little ones, some crafty ideas using our Kindermusik App.
Summer ideas
We know it can be really hard to think of things to do when classes finish for the summer when you have little ones so click on the below links for some ideas for family days out this summer!
- Events around Sussex | Lets Go With The Children
- 20 Best Things To Do In West Sussex Near Me | Attractions in West Sussex | Day Out With The Kids
- Sussex | National Trust
- Family Fun things to do (visitsoutheastengland.com)
Kindermusik App and Crafts
Did you know we have a Kindermusik app for phones? Once you have downloaded the app, you will need to log into your account.
The Kindermusik’s app features include:
Lots of your favourite Kindermusik songs (organised into different themes like animals, weather, our bodies, colours and instruments)
Digital instruments
Make your own music by playing along to different tracks
Craft ideas
Recipes
Class demo videos
Nursery Rhymes
Your story books from your Kindermusik class
Download it today and enjoy your favourite Kindermusik activities on the go!
You will also receive weekly activities to enjoy at home if you sign up to: https://try.kindermusik.com/kids-activities/
Each week, you’ll receive:
· A themed activity kit
· An easy-to-make craft
· A how-to video + written instructions
· Musical pairings with each activity
· Parenting tips
· Access to Kindermusik songs
· And more!
Summer play dates
To keep Kindermusik alive for your little ones over the summer break, we are offering summer play dates for two days only.
Why not invite friends along to enjoy some fun too!
Booking closes on 18th July, so please secure your space early on! Spaces can be booked online.
Music improves baby brain responses to music and speech
Molly McElroy
Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences
Rock your baby in sync with music and you may wonder how the experience affects her and her developing brain.
A new study by scientists at the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) shows that a series of play sessions with music improved 9-month-old babies’ brain processing of both music and new speech sounds.
“Our study is the first in young babies to suggest that experiencing a rhythmic pattern in music can also improve the ability to detect and make predictions about rhythmic patterns in speech,” said lead author Christina Zhao, a postdoctoral researcher at I-LABS.
“This means that early, engaging musical experiences can have a more global effect on cognitive skills,” Zhao said.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published the study this week.
“Infants experience a complex world in which sounds, lights and sensations vary constantly,” said co-author Patricia Kuhl, co-director of I-LABS. “The baby’s job is to recognize the patterns of activity and predict what’s going to happen next. Pattern perception is an important cognitive skill, and improving that ability early may have long-lasting effects on learning.”
Like music, language has strong rhythmic patterns. The timing of syllables helps listeners define one speech sound from another and understand what someone is saying. And it’s the ability to identify differences in speech sounds that helps babies to learn to speak.
The I-LABS researchers designed a randomized-controlled experiment to see if teaching babies a musical rhythm would help the babies with speech rhythms.
Over the course of a month, 39 babies attended 12 15-minute play sessions in the lab with their parents. In groups of about two or three, the babies sat with their parents, who guided them through the activities.
In the 20 babies assigned to the music group, recordings of children’s music played while an experimenter led the babies and their parents through tapping out the beats in time with the music.
All the songs were in triple meter — like in a waltz — which the researchers chose for being relatively difficult for babies to learn.
The 19 babies in the control group attended play sessions that did not involve music. Instead, they played with toy cars, blocks and other objects that required coordinated movements without music.
“In both the music and control groups, we gave babies experiences that were social, required their active involvement and included body movements — these are all characteristics that we know help people learn,” Zhao said. “The key difference between the play groups was whether the babies were moving to learn a musical rhythm.”
Within a week after the play sessions ended, the families came back to the lab so the babies’ brain responses could be measured. The researchers used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to see the precise location and timing of brain activity.
While sitting in the brain scanner, the babies listened to a series of music and speech sounds, each played out in a rhythm that was occasionally disrupted. The babies’ brains would show a particular response to indicate they could detect the disruption.
The researchers focused their analyses on two brain regions, the auditory cortex and the prefrontal cortex, which is important for cognitive skills such as controlling attention and detecting patterns.
Babies in the music group had stronger brain responses to the disruption in both music and speech rhythm in both the auditory and the prefrontal cortex, compared with babies in the control group.
This suggests that participation in the play sessions with music improved the infants’ ability to detect patterns in sounds.
“Schools across our nation are decreasing music experiences for our children, saying they are too expensive,” Kuhl said. “This research reminds us that the effects of engaging in music go beyond music itself. Music experience has the potential to boost broader cognitive skills that enhance children’s abilities to detect, expect and react quickly to patterns in the world, which is highly relevant in today’s complex world.”
Funders of the research were the National Science Foundation UW LIFE Center, the Ready Mind Project at I-LABS, and the Washington State Life Sciences Discovery Fund.
Birthdays over the summer break and school leavers
For any birthdays over the summer break, you should have received an email about moving up to the next level in September. Please let me know if you wish to reserve a space, as September gets busy with new enrolments.
For our Laugh and Learn children leaving to attend school, you should have received an email about moving up to our Move and Groove class in September. These classes are at 4pm after school. Please let me know if you plan to enrol or if you are leaving in July.
Dates for the diary:
Last day before summer break – 11th July 2025
Summer play dates – Wednesday 30th July & Wednesday 20th August
2025/2026 dates
Return after summer break – 8th September 2025
As always, if you take any photos in class, don’t forget to tag us on Instagram and facebook at Kindermusikbyjan – it really helps others to see all the fun we get up to in class!
Have a musical day!
Row, Mary, and Antony xxxx
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May at Kindermusik by Jan
Hello and happy May! We’ve been loving the sunshine (in between the showers) here at Kindermusik by Jan and hope you and your little ones have too! This month on the blog, we’re finding out more about what the benefits of coming to our classes and you can see what we all got up to over the half term break.
Row
I’ve had a mixed week but a lovely time soaking up quality time with my two children.
We spent the first few days at Silverstone watching Motogp, which was great fun! Unfortunately, we had to travel to cumbria for a family funeral which was very sad for the second half of the holidays. We did travel up slightly earlier so we could spend a few days up there to enjoy the outdoors as well as spend some time with family.
We visited the slate mines, we visited the aquarium and enjoyed walks in the mountains and at the beach. Amber and Hugo did their first mountain climb which they did amazingly well! It was my husbands birthday, so we enjoyed some delicious food.
Mary
A thoroughly lovely half term in the Spanish sunshine! Lots of reading and relaxing! Looking forward to seeing you all back at Kindermusik and hopefully seeing the summer sunshine too!
Antony
Our half term week was all about ferrying our son to his performances at the Brighton Open Air Theatre. I was chaperoning him and saw all the performances. It was a lovely show with some terrific performances. There were friends and family who managed to see the show so it was a great way of catching up with people.
Louis and I did manage one day away from the theatre when we went up to London to the Minecraft Experience (the less said about that the better!!! Although Louis seemed to enjoy it).
Kindermusik benefits: what are they and why do our educators tell us about them?!
Did you know that holding and playing smaller instruments is helping develop your child’s fine motor skills or how moving to a steady beat helps their vestibular system which helps their balance? Or how moving your baby in certain ways is helping with their spatial awareness? You might have heard your Kindermusik educator mention things like this during an activity in class and we call these our ‘Kindermusik benefits’! All of these things are ways that Kindermusik is helping your child’s development – and believe us, Kindermusik helps your child develop in lots of ways! We have found that it is helpful to share these benefits with you in class in order to help you understand why we are doing certain activities and to be able to further help your child. It really is amazing all of the different ways that coming to class can help your child’s development. Benefits from coming to class include:
- Helps social skills like working together, sharing and taking turns
- Improves early maths and literacy development
- Develops fine and gross motor skills
- Improves listening skills
- Helps develop balance and a sense of rhythm
- Gives children a tool for self expression
- Helps develop vocabulary
- Develops spatial awareness
3 Ways to Enhance Phonemic Awareness with Music
You’ve probably heard the word phonics, but what exactly is phonemic awareness? Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds—phonemes—in spoken words, a crucial pre-reading and speech skill.
Research shows that programs focused on phonemic and phonological awareness significantly increase children’s reading abilities in early years, and can be further enhanced by music. What does this look like at home? Here are a few things you can do that sound like learning, but feel like fun!
Start by selecting a letter sound, phoneme, or blend to focus on. Some examples include “lo,” “me,” or “shoo.” Next, try applying the following steps to enhance awareness of the sound:
Bring Attention to Mouth Shape and Tongue Position
As you teach a new sound, it is important to help your child understand how it relates to the shape of their mouth and lips, and position of their tongue and teeth. For example, if I am teaching the sound “lo,” I would show my son that my lips are preparing to make a circle and my tongue is curled against the roof of my mouth.
Use a Mirror to Visualize Phonemes
You can further enhance the experience by using a handheld mirror or the selfie camera on your phone. Let your child see their own mouth as they shape the sound and ask questions (Can you see your teeth when you say meeee? What shape does your mouth make when you say ohhhh?). Doing so will help them concrete the sounds they are learning through visualization. Also, kids love looking at themselves in the mirror!
Repeat that Sound to a Familiar Tune
“Apples and Bananas” is a perfect example of a song that already does this. The lyrics follow the pattern that whatever vowel sound you choose for “eat” (e.g., “oat,” “ite,” etc.), is the same sound you apply to apples and bananas (opals and ba-no-noes, eye-ples and ba-nye-nyes). Play this song below to get started or stream it from our free app.
“Apples and Bananas” | Kindermusik
It could be as simple as replacing all of the words with a single sound, kind of like how we naturally sing a song when we forget the words: “la, la, la…” or “da, da, da…” For example, you might change all of the words of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” to the sound “lo.”
Why Use Music to Boost Phonemic Awareness?
Music can help unlock language centers in the brain in ways that spoken language can’t. Plus, it’s fun! Children love to mimic and sing. So, whether you’re just starting to help your child sound out words or you’re in the middle of early speech therapy, remember to keep things simple at home and just turn up the music!
Summer Play Dates:
We have decided to run a couple of play dates over the summer break on Wednesday 30th July and Wednesday 20th August. Bookings must be made by the 18th July. Participating children are £10 each. The timetable will be the same as our current timetable. These classes will be advertised externally, so please do book your space in advance as spaces are limited.
Supporting small business’s
Summer is officially here; we can bring out the dresses and short sleeved tops.
Ivy Grace Jewellery (run by Caroline – one of our Move and Groove mums), has her own etsy page, which you can view here:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/IvyGraceJewellery
“Caroline specialises in jewellery designs featuring pearls and colourful beads, with a particular focus on personalised pieces.”
Birthdays over the summer break and school leavers
For any birthdays over the summer break, you should have received an email about moving up to the next level in September. Please let me know if you wish to reserve a space, as September gets busy with new enrolments.
For our Laugh and Learn children leaving to attend school, you should have received an email about moving up to our Move and Groove class in September. These classes are at 4pm after school. Please let me know if you plan to enrol or if you are leaving in July.
Fathers Day Gifts
Don’t forget we offer gift vouchers for the perfect gift, so please do tell your friends or family and invite them along. Vouchers can be purchased for a one off class or for a Month and beyond.
Dates for the diary:
Last day before summer break – 11th July 2025
2025/2026 dates
Return after summer break – 8th September 2025
As always, if you take any photos in class, don’t forget to tag us on Instagram and facebook at Kindermusikbyjan – it really helps others to see all the fun we get up to in class!
Have a musical day!
Row, Mary, and Antony xxxx