Kindermusik "Village" Cutie, Haley Plumley Turns 1 year old!!

Check out little Haley's mad musical skills!

Awww that sweet duckie said "quack quack" and gave our birthday girl a big duck kiss!

The book "Five Little Ducks" was a hit!

Shakin' those egg shakers is always a Kindermusik favorite!

Of course we can't have a musical birthday without our guitar serenade:)

"...Happy birthday dear Haley, happy birthday to you"!!

Oh the fun of a musical and magical Kindermusik birthday party!! I must say that I was an oh so proud Kindermusik Educator on little Haley's first birthday! Haley has been in my Kindermusik Village class for almost an entire year and it's been such a treat to see this precious little girl grow and blossom over the year. It was such an honor to get to be a part of her BIG DAY. As you can see from the pictures, Haley was the star of the day in her cute duckie dress, showing off her incredible musical skills by playing the clacker balls and egg shakers to the steady beat making Ms. Ashley soo proud! We had such a fun time with our sweet duck theme, Haley's favorite animal! I just had to share these wonderful pictures with you!

You too can give your child the BEST... a musical and magical Kindermusik birthday party! See our website at http://noteabledifference.kindermusik.net/BirthdayParties.html for all of our party packages!

Musicans Exhibit Enhanced Perception of Emotion in Speech!

Check out this article from European Journal of Neuroscience 29:661-668 (2009)!

Musical experience and neural efficiency: effects of training on subcortical processing of vocal expressions of emotion -- by D. L. Strait, E. Skoe, N. Kraus, & R. Ashley (Auditory Neuroscience and Music Cognition Laboratories of Northwestern University)

Musicians exhibit enhanced perception of emotion in speech, although the biological foundations for this advantage remain unconfirmed. In order to gain a better understanding for the influences of musical experience on neural processing of emotionally salient sounds, we recorded brainstem potentials to affective human vocal sounds. Musicians showed enhanced time-domain response magnitude to the most spectrally complex portions of the stimulus and decreased magnitude to more periodic, less complex portions. Enhanced phase-locking to stimulus periodicity was likewise seen in musicians' responses to highly complex portions. These results suggest that auditory expertise engenders both enhancement and efficiency of subcortical neural responses that are intricately connected with acoustic features important for the communication of emotional states. Our findings provide the first biological evidence for behavioral observations indicating that musical training enhances the perception of vocally expressed emotion in addition to establishing a subcortical role in the auditory processing of emotional cues.

Musical Fun for a Rainy Day!

We've had our fair share of rain this past week so I thought that I would post some fun hands on musical activities for you and your little ones to explore indoors when it's too rainy to get outside. You can make these instruments and explore all of those concepts we've been working on in class such as loud and soft or up and down and lots more!! The gathering drum pictured above was a hit in class this week so have fun making your own drum with directions listed below. ENJOY :)

Paper Plate Shaker

(taken from Suite101.com "Musical Instrument Crafts for Preschoolers: Easy Craft and Activity Ideas for a Music Theme")

Materials:
paper plates
lentils (use fruit loops or cheerios for younger children)
markers, crayons, pencil crayons and stampers
hot glue
coloured electrical tape

Give each child a paper plate to use as the shell of the shaker. Let him put a ¼ cup of lentils into the middle of the paper plate.
Help the children fold the paper plate in half like a taco, keeping the lentils in the middle. Hot glue around the edges to keep the shaker closed. Seal the edge of the shaker with coloured electrical tape to ensure the lentils stay inside.
Let the children draw on and decorate both sides of their shakers.
For varying sounds, show the children how to shake the instrument vigorously and also with a gentle side to side movement. If lentils are not available, try unpopped popcorn, bird seed or beads to fill the shaker.

To help the kids experience the rhythm of a shaker, sing this song with them.
Shake it, shake it, shake it,
Shake it everywhere,
Shake it, shake it, shake it,
Shake it under there!

Read more: "Musical Instrument Crafts for Preschoolers: Easy Craft and Activity Ideas for a Music Theme" - http://educational-kids-crafts.suite101.com/article.cfm/musical_instrument_crafts_for_preschoolers_and_t#ixzz09qvYj5Oi

Yogurt Tub Drums

Materials:
650g yogurt containers
construction paper
masking tape
markers, pencil crayons, stamps

Trace the lid of the yogurt tub onto construction paper, and also draw a long rectangular shape the size of the yogurt tub itself. Cut out both shapes and tape them onto the container, covering the drum with construction paper.
Let the kids decorate their drums with markers, pencil crayons and stampers.
Put on some music that has a heavy beat such as African Playground by Putamayo Kids and let the kids drum along with the music.

Atlanta Blizzard '09??

So this week I decided that I had to feature this blizzard that we had last weekend in Atlanta! I know calling the snow that we had, a blizzard, might seem CRAZY to those of you from the north. But for those of us from the south like me, we definitely thought our snow on Sunday was a blizzard indeed! Snow around here never lasts for an entire afternoon or ever accumulates! Some schools were even closed on Monday so we definitely had a blizzard!

I hope you all had a chance to go out and play in the snow. For some of the little ones this might have been the first snowflakes that they have seen! Well my husband and I took a little time to play in the snow ourselves because it's a novelty for us too. I thought that I would share some of our fun snow pictures this week.

Do you have any cute snow pictures of your little ones from last week? If so please feel free to upload them to the blog and share!! Also, enjoy new pictures added to the slideshow from classes over the last two weeks!