Family Time Unit Descriptions

Family Time Curriculum Description
Age Range: newborn through 7 years
Class Structure: 10 classes in a semester
Class Length: 45 minutes each week
Class Size: 6-7 families with at least one caregiver per family

What Families Experience in Class:

• Singing – From the first “Hello” song to the last “Goodbye,” exploring a variety of musical styles and genres leads children to find their own voice. Plus singing helps with memory and recall, physical development, creativity, and socialization.
• Assorted Movement – Whether moving as a family, as a class, or as individuals, Family Time movement activities enhance coordination skills, create opportunities for imitation and exploration, and give everyone something to smile, rock, bounce, or dance about.
• Story Time — Reading aloud to children stimulates their curiosity, expands their knowledge, and broadens their understanding of language.
• Family Jam – Children as well as adults will love selecting a unique instrument and joining in one big class jam instrument play along session each week.
• Musical Concepts — Fun engaging activities bring out the musicality in everyone, from the youngest member of the family to the oldest.  Families learn more about music as they learn more about each other.
• Expert advice – A Kindermusik educator explains how the musically based activities enhance each child’s complete development.
• Learning continues at home — With the home materials, the learning and bonding continues at home with the child’s best teacher—the parent!

Enrollment includes:

• 10 week semester
• Weekly 45-minute class
• Set of Home Materials including a Family Activity Guide, two CDs of music from class, two instruments, and two literature books

Unit Descriptions

Enrollment includes:

Our Kind of Day — Music time isn’t just at music class, it’s all day long! What better way to build family bonds than to sprinkle music and movement throughout playtime, mealtime, clean-up time, bathtime, and nighttime? At each lesson, parents are given ideas for creativity and insights into their child’s development. With catchy songs such as “Wishy, Washy, Wee” for bathtime, “Go Into the Kitchen” for mealtime, and “Love Somebody” at bedtime—parenting becomes easier and a lot more fun! Over the course of 10 weeks, each lesson is packed with singing, listening, storytime, puppet play, creative movement, instrument play, family jams, and sharing.

Home Materials: Two Books—Bouncing on the Bed and Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, two Home CDs, Family Guide, domino game, and two double-egg shaker instruments.

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Here, There and Everywhere—the five sub-themes center around different family outings:  a visit with a friend, an outing at the park, a trip to the city, an afternoon at the aquarium, and a day on the farm.  Move like animals with this unit’s story Flip-Flap, Sugar Snap! And follow a girl’s adventure as she loses her jambourine during the day’s outings and then finds it in the story Jingle-Jangle Jambourine.

Home Materials: Two Books—Flip-Flap, Sugar Snap! and Jingle-Jangle Jambourine, two Home CDs, Family Guide, board game, and two jambourine instruments.

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Movin’ & Groovin’ is a romping, rolling, stretching good time for the whole family. This ten-lesson unit of Family Time will explore lots of different ways to move—high and low, fast and slow, zigzag, curvy, and more. Family members will chug around the classroom like trains, clip-clop like horses, and roll over like puppy dogs. They’ll hear a story about playing tag together in Can You Catch Me?, and read about a jungle hokey-pokey in Put Your Left Paw In. Show your best groovin’ moves—it’s time for Movin’ & Groovin’.

Home Materials: Two Books—Can You Catch Me? and Put Your Left Paw In, two Home CDs, Family Guide, and two monkey den-den drums.

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In Make Way for Music, families will sing, dance, and move their way through an exploration of several elements of music: beat and rhythm, concepts and contrasts (such as staccato and legato, high and low, the major scale, and arpeggios), the human voice, instrument families, and ensemble. They’ll engage in developmentally appropriate activities that the whole family can enjoy together, including fingerplays, songs, circle dances, story time, and family jam.

Home Materials: Two books—Drum Circle and Animals on Parade, two Home CDs,  Family Guide, an instrument-matching board game and two fingerdrums.