Musical Toddlers

The local Arts Center (where we saw the VodVil Klown performance) has lots of great programs for kids. When Rebecca was 2-1/2 I signed her up for "Coloring Outside the Lines" and she LOVED it. They have other excellent programs for kids and adults of all ages using every possible medium.

Sam loves to sing, and they have a parent/child Music and Movement class Diane showed me that we both thought he would enjoy. It's at 9:15 - 10:15 on Tuesday mornings - definitely not an easy time for us given our Kindergarten schedule. It means that if I find someone to watch Rebecca and Emily, they must live in our neighborhood, or come to my house, otherwise we get home to late to get Rebecca fed and do all the little last minute preps before school without a lot of stress and tension. Definitely not the way I want to send her off to school.

Of his three classes, Grandma was in town for one, and Grandpa watched them for one, but I new I needed another solution, because they can't always come to the house and watch them. And unfortunately my friends in the neighborhood aren't able to watch the girls on Tuesday mornings either, so it was either cancel the class, or figure out a way to take them with me. I really, really debated about this one. Sam really loves the other kids he's with and the teacher is wonderful. So I packed the preschool totes with drawing materials in one and books in the other, and had long talks with both girls about sitting quietly and reading/drawing. To my amazement and delight, they were perfect! They were quiet they didn't whine, or talk - they were perfect little angels on the wall.

Becca was so cute. About 40 minutes into the class, I went over and checked on her (which I did pretty frequently throughout the class) and she said, "Sam gets to do really fun things. I want to do fun things too." I told her we could do just about all of what Sam was doing in class at home.

The class does lots of activities involving music and movement. They do rhythm sticks to songs on a CD, singing songs, free form dancing, circle dances, follow the leader stuff, and more. For a good 20 minutes of the class they pull out lots of different things the kids can use their large muscles with - large balls, ladders and slides, stairs to climb, tubes to crawl through, etc. - all the while music is playing in the background. Connie Dover seems to be a favorite musician of the teacher. For the last 5 minutes of class, they pull out a large parachute and do a good-bye routine. When I took the girls with me two weeks ago, I had them help the other parents maneuver the parachute and I think that helped Rebecca with her "I wanna have fun too!" pains. And when it was all over the girls said they wanted to come with us again. So that's encouraging, since they'll be going with me again tomorrow morning!

In January I'm going to sign Sam and Emily both up for "Coloring Outside the Lines." It's for kids 2-3, again it's a parent/child class and is only offered on Tuesday afternoons. But I asked if Emily could come being 4, and if I could be the only adult, and the instructor said it was okay! So I'm excited, I think both kids will enjoy that class - they both have very different approaches to art, so the end product will be different and unique.