Music has the power to shape a child's mind

Check out this new study on music and its potential effect on shaping your child's brain.

"Learning an instrument enhances the brain's sensitivity to all sounds, including speech, say researchers."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/music-has-the-power-to-shape-a-childs-mind-1905967.html

Practicing Word Recognition on the Keyboard

Once they have mastered the letter recognition from the last post, try playing full words!

Here are some of the words you can make using the "musical alphabet".

A B C D E F G

ACE

ADD

AGE

BAD

BAG

BED

BEG

BEAD

CAB

DAB

DAD

DEAD

EGG

FAB

FAD

FACE

GAG

GAB

Once your child has mastered the words you place on the keyboard, see if they can create and sound out words of their own!

Practicing Letter Recognition on the Keyboard

Another activity to do with the color/letters adhered to your keyboard is letter recognition. I printed the letters of the musical alphabet (A,B,C,D,E,F and G) on 3x5 inch cards and laminated them so they would last longer. I made several cards for each letter.

Place one letter on the keyboard and ask your child to play the corresponding key on the keyboard. Once all 7 letters are mastered, try 2, 3 or 4 letters at a time!

Music Computer Games

I ran across a fun computer game today that involves listening to and identifying instruments. This might be fun for some of your kids!

http://www.musicgames.net/livegames/orchestra/orchestra2.htm

There are several other demo games available on this website and a store to buy the full version if you like it.

http://www.musicgames.net/play_musicgames.htm

Another fun website is called DSO kids. It has several fun games, instructions for building instruments at home and links for listening to classical music.

http://www.dsokids.com/default.aspx