Music Class

For the past few months, I've been taking Ryan to music class every Thursday night. We have a 45-minute class of 8 kids ages 18 months-3 years plus one or more of their parents. We recently had our last class where parents and grandparents could come watch and see what we've been doing all semester. Ryan was very excited about Daddy, Grandpa and Grandma coming to Music!

We started every class with "It's Our Time to [clap] to everyone...[clap] hello, hello." Then each child gets to choose what action they want to do. We usually "stomped" to Ryan.

For this night, we did a special Christmas song of "Jingle Bells"

Next was one of the kids' favorite "lap bounces" with 3 verses:

Giddyup Horsey, Giddyup Horsey, Giddyup Horsey, Go, Go, Go
Giddyup Horsey, Giddyup Horsey, Giddyup Horsey, Whoa!

vs.2 Giddydown Horsey (bounce off to the side)
vs.3 GiddyWHOA  Horsey (drop between your legs)

We did a few "circle"-type dances and this one involved falling down whenever the music did a certain thing. Ryan interprets "we all fall down" to "tackle Mommy." Part of it also involved pretending we were airplanes.

We got to play with all sorts of instruments throughout the year including a drum, bells, tone blocks, guitar, windchimes, triangle, slide whistle and others. This night we played with some favorites: egg shakers and sand blocks!

The kids love the shakers and Ryan even likes to pretend he has shakers at home. We even have to put the imaginary ones away at home using the song "shakers away, shakers away, gently put the shakers away." With the sandblocks, we practiced "legato and staccato." Ryan was a bigger fan of "fast and loud" than "slow and soft" but he was pretty good at following directions.

Each week we also had one "quiet" song. Sometimes we rocked or rubbed their feet but their favorite was playing under the bubble machine. Ryan liked hitting the bubbles, blowing them, and attempting to eat them! (You will see he succeeded at all of these.)

 

 The kids also got to play with other props throughout the year, like a giant ball, a parachute, bean bags and colorful scarves. This time Grandma got her turn playing with the scarves with Ryan! Then, it was time for the "Good-bye" song where we wave good-bye to our friends.

We had a great semester of Music with Miss Sara and Ryan will miss all his friends he met, but we're glad he got to learn and experience so many things. It helped him learn to pay attention, obey commands from another adult, sit and listen, take turns, put things away, remember words and actions, and develop large and small motor skills. I highly recommend toddler music class and encourage you to take advantage if classes are offered in your area. Fortunately, ours were very affordable since they weren't under a "branded" title like Kindermusik, and I loved having a set time to be with Ryan 1-on-1 where we weren't distracted by things that needed to get done, or worried about making a mess or breaking anything and could just have fun together!