Music at Sunflower has really taught children how to listen. Listening is so important to growing and learning. Its very difficult to get kids to listen unless there is full brain entrainment and they are totally absorbed. Music is a full brain activity unlike language being left brain and math being right brain. Having said that percussion and music enhance language and cognitive skills and promote creativity and imagination.
Music is resonance and is felt in the body. The body moves to music becoming more aware of body positions. The rhythm is grounding just like mom’s heartbeat close to them grounds them calms them. Rhythm also brings pattern recognition which facilitates problem solving and social development.
Patting the drums shaking the maracas and rubbing sticks enhance co ordination and motor skills. This array of percussion and rhythm is impromptu and self-created free expression unlike structured singing having its own benefits. Whether its learning abstract skills through percussion or creating stories and theatre expressions through nursery rhymes and Raffi songs the bottom line at school is to provide an environment similar to the child’s world of play. It’s a play area where you are not being judged just given the space to access different realms and be social. Teamwork and social skills and patience and self-esteem all make a quantum jump.
So here at school we have classes with Kanupriya and Wendy.
Wendy has been an educator for 25 years and her philosophy is music and movement which is the ideal developmental medium for this age group. Wendy grew up and got educated in the USA and is now in Mumbai and her 3 daughters are sunflower alumni!!!!
Kanupriya is a classically trained voice and plays the ukulele , which she says lends her voice just the right amount of support. She sings simple children’s song sometimes with movement and action sometimes she uses scarves and sticks and its all rhythm movement singing and action. Its engaging and exciting for her and the kids.
Wendy is a bit more freeform and its about creating your own rhythm with shakers and drums and bells, and making sounds that we can laugh at like hiccups and grandpa snoring!! She brings us back to our bodies and then takes us out on a story a trek through another world. Sometimes it’s like a lullaby sometimes an adventure climbing a hill to look over, sometimes we can just scrape and bang and make our own free music. All in all, it’s a sensory and auditory experience. I find my kids more focused when they come out of music class the academia of standing lines and counting seems lighter and the laughter in the air more pleasant.
GO SUNFLOWER GO Music makes you rock and the sunflowers bloom this 50 years is a special bloom!!!!!
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