A Parent's Thoughts

We are approaching our 9th birthday here at Delightful Sounds. Sometimes it boggles my brain when I sit and think of all the families I have met over those nine years. There are so many special faces and names that come to mind. I can recall favorite songs and activities that stand out in my mind. I even remember dancing the tango-cha-cha in Do-Si-Do with baby Jack S. who is now well into elementary school! I was recently talking with a parent from another Kindermusik program. She had moved here in the last few months from Alaska and was recalling fondly when her children were young enough to attend Kindermusik there. "What did you like most about your time in Kindermusik?" I asked. I suspected that her answer would be something about bonding while having fun with her children or the developmental benefits that it provided. "Those were great," she said. "But I loved the heritage it's preserving most of all."  In this world of high speed technology and information, she enjoyed slowing down to sing nursery rhymes and folk songs that had been handed down from one generation to the next for hundreds of years. There is a wholesomeness and affability that comes with this heritage, and I agree it is worth preserving. Do you think you know your nursery rhymes? Click here for a fun nursery rhyme quiz! If you find you need to brush up on a few rhymes, I know where there is a great Kindermusik class! :)

A special thank you!

National Adoption month is almost over, and I couldn't let it pass before thanking those who chose life so that their precious children could be loved and cherished by an adoptive family. I know it could not have been an easy decision, but as an aunt to 2 beautiful adopted boys, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Of horses, children, and all things teachable

Recently, I took my daughters on a field trip to Forever Florida to learn more about Florida's cattle history and horsemanship. While there, we participated in a horse training session. During the session, positive behavior was reinforced with a treat or verbal praise, and negative behavior was redirected. Within about 15 minutes we had trained one horse to yawn on command and another to roll a ball back to you. I was intrigued because I use this same technique in my Kindermusik classroom each week! Positive reinforcement can start with a small treat or verbal praise each time the desired outcome is achieved. The rewards will then begin to decrease as the new habit begins to form. There are a number of reasons that positive reinforcements works.

• It supports what the child is doing right instead of focusing on what the child is doing wrong.
• It increases the odds that your child will behave in that manner again.
• It encourages your child's positive choices when you "catch them being good".

Positive reinforcement is nothing new to parents, but we often get so busy that we miss the opportunity. If we're not careful, we may only notice when the behavior has become undesirable. When that happens, it's important to redirect your child back to the original goal and reinforce the appropriate behavior once it occurs. I'm sure they will be galloping to success in no time flat! ;)

You might be a home schooler...

As I walked through my home the other day, I noticed a quilt thrown in a pile on the floor of my music room. With a sigh and a mumble of "wishing people would just learn to put things away", I reached to fold it up. I stopped, however, as I realized that there was something more going on with that quilt. It had become a classroom. A crack along the edge of the quilt was allowing in just enough light for a 4th grade reading class to exist beneath its quiet shroud. As a home school family, this behavior is not that unusual for us. However, I venture to say that most of you don't realize that you are home schoolers too!

Webster's dictionary defines a classroom as "a place where classes meet". To many this looks like a room with 4 walls, desks, and children seated in neat and tidy rows, but I believe a classroom is better defined as "a place where learning occurs".  Realistically, learning can take place anywhere at anytime. You might learn about math or nutrition on a trip to the grocery store. Little ones learn phonics and other pre-reading skills simply by singing silly songs with you in the car. Maybe you've even found yourself explaining the concepts of momentum and physics while playing ball with your children. (although you might not have used the technical jargon! LOL)

The point I'm trying to make here is that just because your child is enrolled at a traditional school or is too young to go to school yet, YOU are always going to be your child's most important teacher. It doesn't matter what your educational background is like. No one knows your child better than you do. No one has the vested interest that you have to ensure your child's success in life. Teachers can have an amazing impact on their students. It's one of the reasons I love my job as a Kindermusik teacher so much, but I truly believe some of the most important skills your child will ever learn will come from you as you guide them through everyday life. So embrace your "homeschooliness" and enjoy learning with your children each day! 

8 Germiest Places

So many things change when you become a parent. I don't think anything I heard from wizened parents before me could have quite prepared me for that. I mean, what can prepare you for the effects of sleepless nights for years and years, sassy toddlers that push buttons you didn't even know you had, or all the nasty things children touch and put in their mouths! So, here I am. My name is Aimee Carter, and I am a germaphobe. There! I freely admitted it.

So, if you join me in my germ revulsion, you might want to check out the 8 germiest places as posted earlier this week on USA Today. I'll list them here from least to most germiest spot. Then I'm going to wash my hands. Ewwwww!

1. Vending machines -35%
2. Crosswalk buttons -35%
3. Parking meters -40%
4. Kiosks -40%
5. ATM buttons -41%
6. Escalator rails -43%
7. Mail box handles -68%
8. Gas pump handles -71%

What's your potential?

We were recently discussing in one of our Kindermusik classes that a two year old child has twice as many neural connections as an adult. They are so busy learning everything about the world around them, that they are constantly forming connections in the brain. Later they will go through a pruning process where the more useful connections will be strengthened for continued use. Let's put this in perspective. Our brains contain one hundred billion neurons. "Suppose each neuron was one dollar, and you stood on a street corner trying to give dollars away to people as they passed by, as fast as you could hand them out- let's say one dollar per second. If you did this twenty four hours a day, 365 days a year, without stopping, and if you had started on the day that Jesus was born, you would by the present day only have gone through about two thirds of your money."


That's an impressive amount of potential. That's why it is so important to give your children a sensory rich experience when they are young. Interact and play along with your child to help them understand the world around them or answer their questions during the creative process. Who knows, you might make a few new neural connections of your own! ;)

Excerpt from This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin

How Music Can Protect Against Hearing Loss

This post originally appeared on the Minds on Music blog for Kindermusik International and was written by Jamie Sterling.
My husband is a professional musician. He’s spent the majority of his life playing loud music through loud amplifiers (and in booming tones). Did I mention he’s a bassist? Not only that, but he likes to listen to pretty loud music – and he wears headphones to do his recording and other loud, musical work every day. I’ve expressed my concern for his ears and the potential hearing loss I was sure he was doomed to deal with. But, despite my nagging…I mean, despite my expressions of concern… he has always insisted that he has “tough ears.”


One time, he was having a hard time hearing – to the point that he decided to go to the doctor. This is something, because he is one of those guys who likes to avoid the doctor, unless it is very serious. I was sure I was going to have my ‘told you so’ moment on his hearing. Turns out, it was a massive amount of earwax! And, after taking a requisite hearing test at the ear, nose & throat specialist, he was deemed to have “exceptional hearing.”

Now, this just didn’t compute for me. Didn’t my Dad tell me he lost a little bit of his hearing at an early age from standing too close to the amps at big concerts in the 70s? How does exposing yourself to music constantly, as a part of your profession, allow anybody to have better hearing? Perhaps it’s just my husband. He really is a ninja (black belt in Isshinryu karate), so maybe this is just another way his ‘ninja-ness’ manifests itself?

Turns out recent research actually suggests that musicians’ ears ARE tougher. NPR published that embracing music early in life can actually stave off age-related hearing loss!

The article states:

“If you spend a lot of your life interacting with sound in an active manner, then your nervous system has made lots of sound-to-meaning connections” that can strengthen your auditory system, says Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University. Musicians focus extraordinary attention on deciphering low notes from high notes and detecting different tonal qualities. Kraus has studied younger musicians and found that their hearing is far superior to that of their non-musician counterparts.

Knowing that younger musicians seemed to have a distinct hearing advantage made Kraus curious about what happened to those same musicians later in life.

To find out, she assembled a small group of middle-aged musicians and non musicians, aged 45-65. She put both groups through a series of tests measuring their ability to make out and repeat a variety of sentences spoken in noisy background environments. Turns out, the musicians were 40 percent better than non-musicians at tuning out background noise and hearing the sentences, as Kraus reported in PloS ONE. The musicians were also better able to remember the sentences than the non-musicians — and that made it easier for them to follow a line of conversation.

So, my husband will likely be a really sharp older man because he will have less hearing loss, be able to carry conversations better, and have an enhanced IQ. I’ll be the crazy old lady sitting next to him, responding only with “Huh?” and wondering who the President is… unless I pick up my viola – or maybe take up those guitar lessons again!

Listen to the full story on NPR.com.

(Also, as a disclaimer, I highly encourage everyone to wear earplugs and listen to music at a normal decibel level, as the safest precaution against early hearing loss).

Leader of the Band II

It's been 2 years, and we are well overdue for a "Leader of the Band" rematch! Pictured above is our reigning champion, Jake! The photo contest will be open to all families, not just Kindermusik families or families from the Delightful Sounds studio, so if you've you got a child who loves music, make sure to send us a picture of them singing, dancing, playing an instrument, or enjoying music as a family! To enter, email your picture along with your child's first name, birth date, and your contact information in the email. Entries should be for children who are currently 0-6 years old. Your pictures must be received by October 7th. All entries will be then be uploaded to a photo album on the Delightful Sounds' Facebook page. You will be able to vote for your favorite photos there from October 10th-21st. (Anyone who votes will have to "like" our page.) The winner will be announced on October 24th, so get those cameras flashing!