Our Business Partners Are Expanding!

Over the years, we have seen many of our business partners growing from strength to strength. Many have opened new centers to cater to an increasing customer base. We would like to congratulate the following partners on the opening of their new branches; and yes, they do offer Kindermusik programmes at their new premises!

Welcome To The Kindermusik Family

We would like to extend a warm welcome to our following new partners:

Full details of all our partners can be found on our website www.kindermusik.com.sg under Locations & Schedules.

Overcoming Learning Difficulties With Sensory Integration Training.

Happy Kids Potential Development Centre at Marine Parade Central specializes in Sensory Integration Training. This method was developed by Dr. A.Jean Ayres, a US expert in neuroscience and educational psychology. Since its inception in January 2005, the centre have helped more than 60 children improve their learning ability in Singapore. Sensory Integration Training is especially effective for children with learning obstacles such as being over-active and an inability to focus and concentrate, dyslexia, language disability, poor sense of balance, lack of self- confidence, autism and Down Syndrome.

For more information call 63485869, or visit their website at www.geocities.com/jinxr68

Bring A Friend Scheme

We will give a $25 Kindermusik voucher for every friend you introduce to our studio programs. There is no limit to the number of friends you can introduce! This scheme is only applicable to current Kindermusik parents. So hurry parents! Bring your friends down to our studio at Tanglin Mall for a trial class tomorrow! For terms and conditions, please speak to our friendly studio staff.

There Is No Better Time To Register For Our Classes!

Attention all new families! If you are still not a Kindermusik parent, now is the time to act – fast! From 10 May to 31 July 2006, we will waive our registration fee of $31.50 for new families who sign up on the spot after their trial class. Hurry. Limited spaces only!

Never-Ending Summer

Barefooted adventures. Summer night concerts at the cricket and bullfrog theater. That first trip to the zoo. A lifetime of summer memories is waiting to be made inside your child. If it's her first summer, her mind is still forming the ability to make memories. She'll make her own around age two, and the ability matures well into her teenage years.
Find some memorable activities you can make together this summer—and strengthen her ability to make new ones—in this edition of Tune In.

Dance Barefoot On The Grass

Next time you're at an outdoor concert in the park—dance with your baby. Do so and two amazing things happen. First, responding to music is one of the few activities—other than laughter—that engages a baby's entire mind and helps her express emotion, pay attention, and move. Add the unpredictable movement of dancing and you'll turn on another vital system, the vestibular system, which controls balance and coordination.

• Backyard concert. If a summer concert isn't on your community calendar, host a dance in your own backyard.
• Don't know how to dance? Repetitive swaying and bouncing are age-old strategies for distracting a cranky baby. Use rhythmic movements.
• Think of a word then do it. Think of movement words: glide, sway, bounce, two-step, swoop, fly, zig-zag.

Bring The Zoo To Your House

Before a toddler starts making memories, he'll have to concentrate first on standing up, falling down, and getting back up again. Once he's mastered his body, his mind kicks it up a notch and he'll begin to think, remember, be alert, and aware. That's when he starts making memories.
You'll see it happening when you show a toddler one of his favorite things—animals. Show your toddler a favorite four-legged animal, make the sound, and if he makes the sound back to you, you'll know he heard it and remembered it. That's one giant leap in the language and development process.

Animal ABCs—make a stuffed animal petting zoo

• Find pictures, poems, and stuffed animals to set up a petting zoo. One by one, talk about the animals in the petting zoo and how it's important to gently pet each one.
• Make the sound of the animal.
• Ask you toddler to make the sound back to you.
• The more you play this game together, the more you'll see how quickly—and accurately—your toddler is able to imitate not only these sounds, but new words, too.

Flea Fly Mosquito

A recent study showed that children pay attention longer, ask more questions, and stay focused on one thing when a parent is involved in the activity. This give and take—asking questions and getting attention from you—is a preschooler's favorite way to learn.

In play and song activities these roles can be reversed for your preschooler as he listens, then takes the lead and helps direct what is happening. Through your teaching, your child sees how to be a good player, how to elaborate and add ideas, and how to be a good teacher himself.

Pretend to spot a bug in the air
Ask your preschooler if she can find it.
Scratch your arm and say, "itchy, itchy."
Scratch your knee and say, "scratchy, scratchy."
Then sing, "Itchy, itchy, scratchy, scratchy, eww, I’ve got one down my backy."

Ask your preschooler to sing it back to you.

Playing Live Tonight! At the Cricket and Bullfrog Theater

Developmentally your big kid is moving toward the same abstract thinking process to improvise and revise as a professional symphony composer. This higher level of thinking comes with the ability to recognize and remember even more patterns—gaining a basic understanding of science, algebra and geometry, and skills in logic and reasoning.

You'll glimpse these developing skills when you play this nighttime music concert. Sit outside and listen to the night sounds, then your big kid can make these homemade instruments for a "summer night's symphony."

• Talk about the sounds you hear and write them down. Crickets, bull frogs, cicadas, katydids.
• Ask questions. "How would you make that sound?"
• Make the instruments from the sample instructions below.
• Let her be the "family composer."

When she shakes her head, make the cricket sounds.
Shakes her hand, make bullfrog sounds.
Shakes her leg, make owl sounds.
She shakes her whole body, everybody plays together.

Sample instruments and instructions
Fireflies—fill different colored glasses or bottles with varying levels of water and strike it gently.
Baritone bull frogs—wrap rubber bands of different widths around an empty shoe box or rectangle-shaped plastic food container. Pluck the rubber bands, one at a time.

Rain—Fill one paper or plastic plate with rice. Tape the other plate to the top and seal the sides with tape. Roll the rice around slowly for rain sounds.

Cricket—Wrap pipe cleaner around one pencil and leave about a half an inch between ridges. Take another pencil and run it back and forth across the pipe cleaner ridges to make a chirping sound. Or, turn the dial on a ratchet wrench for a cricket sound.