This week I want to compare some child development terms with the skills we learn in Musikgarten classes. You will see that our fun curriculum has a solid developmental structure, built on scientific and pedagogical principles.
Listening is the cornerstone of a child's mental and social development, and it is also the core skill developed in our classes.
Movement and motor skills are innate. Every mother knows the feeling of the baby moving in utero, and even the youngest newborn startles with movement at a sudden sound. Movement is integral to all our classes, starting with bouncing and swaying, walking and stopping, in our baby classes. Movement is featured in every age group, including piano/keyboard, because the child learns first by experiencing and moving. Children learn to move, and they move to learn.
Language and vocabulary begin developing from the earliest days in the womb, as a baby hears the voices of mother and others. Even a newborn baby quickly learns that crying brings a parent! Movement develops before language, but we use language to label our movements by adding interesting vocabulary (such as "The old gray cat is stalking"). In our toddler class we begin to encourage the use of language: the greeting song gives opportunity for each child to speak out a unique movement and as they become familiar with a variety of motor actions, I ask them to choose. Toddlers will show the action before they can use language, but by three years children are ready to say the word that describes the movement.
Social development is Ensemble in musical terminology. From a young age, children are reaching out for social interaction. Our three year-olds love simple ensembles such as "Toumba" which introduce turn-taking with instrumentation. Four year-olds create more complex ensembles based on contrasting melodies or harmonic progressions (examples include "Walking in the green grass" and "Row, row, row your boat".
Emotional or creative development comes from the zone of proximal development we discussed in the previous post. The tension between risk-taking and comfort is a key factor in your child's healthy development. For this reason we give children more input into the class as they get older. they take initiative to organize rhythm cards into new compositions, or create weather soundtracks, for example.
Cognitive development including reading and writing is also foundational to our curriculum. Children learn through cause and effect; they begin to 'connect the dots' and form neural connections in the brain. By age four we have introduced symbols to hear, experience, see, and write. By five and six we are exploring more complex rhythmic and melodic patterns until a child can recognize these features in a song sheet. By the time they reach Piano/Keyboard class, children are able to identify a mystery song from notation they have not seen before. And throughout the curriculum we are also building hand/eye coordination and fine motor skills that prepare a child for reading and writing activities.
This semester, feel free to look out for these developmental skills "hiding" in plain sight in our fun classes. Your child may not notice the educational content, but you will see the developmental benefits!

Every child has to grow from what they can do into what they can't do. One of the core purposes of Musikgarten is to promote such well-rounded development.
Science has studied this process, and shows a key way we can help our children grow. We engage what Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky termed The Zone of Proximal Development.
Think of it like a traffic light:
GREEN means GO - this is what I can already do; it's easy, so I'm successful and relaxed.
RED means STOP - this is what I can't do yet, and wouldn't dare to try.
But in-between comes YELLOW - this is what I can do with help (CAUTION). this is the Zone of Proximal Development.
This is the "I come here but I can't stay" zone. I prefer to return to GO where I know I'm comfortable and successful, but here in the zone of proximal development, if I do it enough (and especially if it is rewarding and enjoyable) I grow and begin to become accustomed and accomplished.
What I CAN do grows, and then I'm ready for another zone of proximal development.
Alongside this process, the neuro-transmitter Dopamine is released when we have fun, making us relaxed and more receptive to learning new things. It is the opposite of what happens when we are fearful or under pressure: we shut down and stop responding.
This is where music can have such a powerful effect on the brain. The brain automatically and naturally responds happily to music. Music is fun and promotes the release of dopamine. Your child becomes comfortable in the zone of proximal development while the music engages the whole brain, activating all the areas we moms instinctively focus on in the quest for growth and progress. 
Musikgarten's Pathway To Musical Literacy has been designed to leverage the zone of proximal development in a fun and relaxed setting. Repetition promotes your child's confidence in the CAUTION zone and they progress to successive musical and developmental milestones such as use of language & vocabulary, motor skills & dexterity, patterns & sequencing, focused listening skills, hand/eye coordination, social interaction, emotional responses & connections, creativity, self-control, impulse control and self-expression. What a comprehensive list of benefits!

​So each week at Musikgarten you join me in the YELLOW zone, the Zone of Proximal Development, and together we watch your child grow and flourish!

Most music education starts like this:
A - P - P - L - E
Teaching the basic elements to be memorized. Perhaps you remember this approach in your own childhood?
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Some music education takes a different approach, showing you the whole picture:

But musikgarten is more like offering you a taste of applesauce, or a slice of apple to enjoy!

Starting from birth, we follow a carefully planned pathway (we call it the Pathway to Musical Literacy) that gives you and your child an engaging taste of music from the first moment, and builds on that first pleasure to lead toward a goal - the ability, benefit, and enjoyment of making music throughout your life.
To illustrate the Musikgarten progression, let's consider listening skills first (since these are crucial to development and learning from the earliest age). For a baby, listening is a continuation of the experience in the womb - which is why our baby class focuses on the bond between parent and baby as much as possible). In the toddler class, we ask the child to focus on a familiar sound, developing individual focused listening. Then in Seasons, we nurture the auditory discrimination skills of the 3-year old by challenging him/her to discern between the voices of four different animals or insects. This prepares him/her for discriminating among the four instruments of the string family in Home Environments and World Travelers. These activities ultimately prepare the child for the careful listening required in figuring out a melody line or chord structure of a song in our Piano classes.
The progression is not just in listening; let's consider movement too. Our babies enjoy rocking and other movements which promote vestibular development and crossing the midline, both essential to healthy growth. Then our toddlers learn finger plays and enjoy free dances; the curriculum encourages each toddler to explore movement through jumping, swaying and spinning. These skills are refined and practiced when the child is challenged to move to the recorded movement stories and imagined journeys in Seasons. This in turn lays the physical groundwork for the concepts of sequence and self-control experienced in the following years, when we introduce formalized  movement games and group dances. These experiences give children the dexterity and grace needed to play the piano musically and rhythmically.
A third area of progression is in patterns. We introduce rhythm and tonal patterns from the start: neutral Ba Ba for babies and toddlers (first listening, then singing) leading to the use of Gordon's Rhythm Language (Du-de du, and Du-da-di du) in the Seasons classes, onward into more complex rhythm and tonal recognition games and song pages in Home Environments and Around the World, and into reading music in Piano. These patterns are the building blocks of music. Learning comes easily as the patterns repeat and build from class to class, preparing your child to read music, compose, and improvise with confidence.
​As we begin this new semester, I wanted to remind you of this carefully designed progression, and say how much I am looking forward to seeing your child's growth this semester with Musikgarten!

As we start a new year (and close out our Fall Semester) I wanted to remind you of some of the many benefits of music education.
Science has done a great deal of work in recent years, validating and deepening what musicians and music teachers have long known: that music touches all spheres of development beneficially.
Language, self-expression, concentration, social interaction, listening, problem solving, teamwork, goal setting, coordination, confidence, self-esteem, creativity, poise, emotional development, family interaction, vocal expression, and fine motor skills are ALL improved with music education.
Perhaps the most significant in the early years (because this affects all future learning) is the development of listening skills. The National Association of Music Merchants quote a paper in the  journal Hearing Research from 2013: "Everyday listening skills are stronger in musically-trained children than in those without music training." And the Journal of Neuroscience agrees: Professor Nina Kraus found that the benefits of musical training lasted well into adulthood, even when a child does not continue to study music as an adult. This answers the questions some parents have about the benefits of childhood musical training when a child has ambitions that are non-musical.
Because music immerses the child in language, and stimulates the brain, it is highly effective at helping the brain learn better. By stimulating verbal memory, music helps the brain respond  faster, and these benefits last through life. In addition, McGill University researchers found that enjoyable music boosts dopamine (the "feel-good, reward neurotransmitter) by up to 10%. No wonder your favorite music makes you feel so good!
It is not just the brain that benefits from music education. Moving to the rhythm of music benefits language and reading skills; it also promotes coordination, poise, and motor skills. Our stop/go songs and dances are introducing your child to purposeful movement, impulse control, and creativity, in a fun setting.
A third area of benefit, alongside physical and cognitive advantages, is in the social realm. Musikgarten is carefully designed to boost confidence and self-esteem, while teaching social interaction and teamwork. Children love to take turns and explore space together, delighting in each other's achievements in playing, singing, or imagination. And those benefits go beyond the classroom into your family life, as you listen to the CD and enjoy the family materials together, recalling last week's class and anticipating the next.
So as we close out our semester, I'm looking forward to ALL these benefits growing in your child next semester: I'll see you in class!