It’s Raining!
by notjustcute Filed Under: Learning through Play and Experience, Music and Movement Leave a Comment
It’s Raining!
Make Those Shaky Eggs
Shaky eggs have to be one of the simplest instruments for children to play. Even toddlers participate with ease when egg shakers are involved! In fact, as soon as infants can grasp with their hands, they can play shaky eggs! I’ve seen shaky eggs for sale for as much as $5 for a set of 2! I’m here to tell you that you can make a class set for about that much! And the process is so simple, you could even let the kiddos each make their own!
This time of year is the right time to do this project, because with Easter around the corner, you can find these plastic eggs for $1 a package! All you need to do is place a little bit of dry rice or popcorn kernels in each egg and seal the egg with electrical tape. (The electrical tape works best because it bends around the egg rather than puckering like many of the other tapes do.) Once your egg is filled and sealed, feel free to decorate it with stickers or use permanent markers to draw designs or write names. Then all that’s left is to SHAKE!
Brain Child or Whole Child? The True Value of Music for Preschoolers
Photo provided by dmc506.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “Music is the universal language of mankind.” It is a transcendent medium, one that takes on a variety of forms to meet the intrinsic needs of each person. It is enlivening and motivating. This we can all agree on. What has been debated in recent decades is the relationship of music to learning. Early studies presented the concept of the “Mozart Effect”, claiming that simply listening to Mozart made people (particularly applied to children) smarter. The study had shown enhanced performance on certain measures after a period of listening to Mozart. What followed was a firestorm of (good-intentioned as well as money-motivated) promoters of the idea that listening to music would make children smarter. Many began to believe that simply playing great musical works in the presence of infants and young children would boost their IQs and give them the fighting edge in the race to becoming the uber-brilliant brain child apparently desired the world over.
To the dismay of purveyors of music as a magical brain supplement, more recent studies have shown that the connection between listening to music and test results may be more likely the result of a favorable, perhaps relaxing, environment, not of a permanent increase in brain capacity. Likewise, studies showing the connection between children who take music lessons and high academic scores, have been challenged by further research claiming this connection has more to do with other factors that allow the child to participate in those lessons (parent involvement, socio-economic factors, etc.).
