Music for Babies: Merrily We Roll the Ball

"Do you play ball with her?" my mom asked me when my second child was 9 months. 

"Um, we explore and play with them but we don't like sit on the floor and roll it to each other yet.  I don't think she can yet."

"Well, she'll learn.  You just need to practice with her.  When you were her age I would come home from teaching and we would play ball."  

"I know, but she may not be at that developmental milestone yet." I told her as she sat down across from Adelyn to roll the ball back and forth with her. 

Well, she couldn't do it yet, but she sure did love it. And I realized after a while that she was trying to roll it.  It looked like a little jerk of her hand and foot.  Well, who knew? Obviously, not me and obviously I didn't spend much of my time as a music therapist working on motor skills with babies. 

So after that I played a lot of "ball" with Adelyn.  Of course, she loved it. How many babies do I know that were in love with rolling objects by the time they turned one?  My three year old son loved watching and trying it with her too. 

Here is a video of my third child practicing to roll a ball with me.  He is just about 8 months.  As most babies do, he also loves to play ball!  Here I used the tune of London Bridge and made a spin off of the song, Merrily we Roll Along (same tune as Mary Had a Little Lamb), changing the words to Merrily We Roll the Ball. In this version, the time that each of you receive the ball has a slightly different melody than the time that you roll it. 

If you are looking for fun songs and music activities to do with your baby (or toddler), this may be one you both enjoy and a great way to teach other children to play with the younger ones. This activity can benefit gross motor skills, eye contact, turn taking, impulse control, object identification, names of people, and also of course, provides another opportunity for quality time where all participants are interacting together.

Happy rolling along!

Easy Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Part I

Part II

A fun song we probably all remember from growing up, used to teach us movement and our body parts is Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.  Kids often enjoy this one with all of the movements and the gradual increase in tempo that is sometimes included. Adults...maybe not so much with all of the bending over.  Who is still that flexible?? The only issue with this version is that when teaching it to toddlers for the first time, or anyone with a speech/motor delay, it must be taught at a very slow tempo. 

When my oldest child was a toddler, we attended Library Story Time here at one of the public libraries. Our wonderful librarian, Yanira, taught us this song instead to the tune of Frere Jacque.  This version is wonderful because it focuses on only two body parts with one move with a repeat before moving on to the next two.  In the other version, four parts were introduced and the only part that was repeated was knees and toes. The tempo is also much slower in this new version.  Definitely works well for anyone who takes  more time to process speech.  

Our baby sure smiles when we sing to him.  At 4 months he seems to remember melodies which he shows by smiling big on the songs we do frequently.  When introducing a new song, he still smiles, but he looks as if he is doing more listening to process the new song. I did not realize the video was in two parts until posting so I have the song split up in to Part 1 and Part II. Hope many more can enjoy this one!

Learning Our Alphabet Sounds

Adelyn and I came up with a way to learn alphabet sounds while using all of our sensory systems.  Kids practicing this way get to be active and moving while learning letter recognition and sounds. Quite honestly, it was more fun for me as the teacher as well! When I wasn't taking pictures and videoing, I joined in with her which she loved.

I think, the best way to do this, especially if the child is still a beginner in recognizing the letters, is to try it following these steps.

• Sing the alphabet song SLOWLY (most recordings go much to fast for little ones processing the new information) while having your child hop on each letter you call out. 
• When you pause or the music stops, have them tell you what letter it is and what sound it makes. 
• If the child is having trouble ith a sound, I like to sing the song on the Leap Frog alphabet products.  We have it on our Fridge Phonics. 

To the tune of The Farmer in the Dell

A says ahhhh
A says ahhhh
A for _________, ah ah ah.

In our video below, I did not sing the alphabet song as she hopped around the circle, nor did we listen to it. We just picked some fun dancing music for her to hop around to. I paused the music on random letters and she told me what letter it was and what sound it made.

Making learning fun!

Maps for Kids on the Road

Image from Google Maps.  Thanks Google!

Welcome back to the blog!  I've been off for the summer.  I went on a kind of "obligation vacation" of the sort (with the exception of parenting).  I got to have a break from music therapy work, choir, teaching faith formation, scheduled sports and as you can see, I have not taken the time to post either. These are all things I love but the break this summer was very needed.  School is beginning in two weeks and I could have gone two more plus that as far as school starting again but it's coming so here I am getting back into the swing. 

We are about to take our last trip for the summer. It will be a long weekend trip up to Amarillo and Lubbock where my parent-in-laws live as well as some cousins of Scott's family.  We do not travel up there often so we are very excited.  Especially the kids!  But of course...the drive will be long and kids will be asking, "Are we there yet?" or "when can we go to the bathroom?" as I DEFINITELY did when I was a kid. 

Back in the spring ,NPR's Talk of the Nation, had a show on maps.  I found it fascinating and one of the callers shared what she does in the car for her kids to help them continue to develop spacial awareness skills. She gives one or two kids a map to look at while driving and the other might get the GPS.  

To get a better idea, spatial awareness is the ability to be aware of oneself in space or organized knowledge of objects in relation to oneself in that give space (http://occupationaltherapyforchildren.over-blog.com.).    Spatial awareness visualize patterns in space especially in depth and distance (Ehow.com.) Spatial awareness can also transfer to many other skill areas especially in relating to structure, organization, how you visually picture things in your mind and is an important factor in our overall perception.  

I thought back to how much I LOVED looking at maps as a kid.  I used to stare endlessly at a giant and detailed map of Louisiana in the Dairy Queen my grandpa owned when I would go to work with him.  Honestly I still love to look at maps. 

 I thought that having maps for my kids during our upcoming drive would be more fun for my kids as well.  They can stay a little more occupied AND  learn to figure out when the next bathroom stop will be.  Well... it maybe a few more years before we reach that one.

Map Actitvity

1. I printed off a large map of Texas with the basic rout (as seen above.)  
2. I also printed out more detailed maps of different sections of the route. 
3. I then also printed an even more specific one of Amarillo so they can see individual streets when we get close.  Of course they may be fast a sleep by the time we arrive but you NEVER know!!

I hope this is something that others find enjoyable and also helpful.