Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/a-music-class-for-babies-how-making-music-with-infants-affects-brain-development/5026460/
*Photos and graphics can be found in the pdf version of this article.
On a recent Tuesday morning, Miss Alicia, an infant room teacher, got ready for her daily “music time” in the nursery. She laid the babies on blankets, put a shaker egg within each infant’s reach, picked up a pair of shakers for herself, and started singing a song. While she sang, Alicia tapped, waved, and shook her eggs: sometimes loud, sometimes soft; sometimes up high, sometimes down low; sometimes on her own legs, and sometimes on the babies’ tummies.
A visitor peeking in the classroom window might wonder what, if anything, the infants were getting from this experience. After all, the babies were not shaking their eggs in rhythm, or singing along with Miss Alicia, or even able to stand up and bounce around. Why not save this kind of activity for the preschool classes, where children seem to actually engage with the music?
Why not wait? There are four answers to that question:
- Big things happen in infants’ brains (which are growing at the fastest rate they ever will!) during music experiences.
- Babies actually do engage with music; they just do so differently than their older counterparts.
- Providing rich music ...