We all know creativity is important for our children - and most of us believe all children are naturally creative. Easily. Freely. 

In true play, we observe children freely choosing activities, immersed in their work without regard for minutes ticking by. They are fully present, engaged. It is a beautiful thing.

We support our children by pouring hours of our time, resources and behind-the-scenes work into structures that frame space for their creative learning. Here, in a community of young families coming together to support our children’s development, we have a unique opportunity. We don’t have to go it alone. We each contribute and receive. 

But what would happen if we took it a step further? What if we support our children’s growth and our own? 

Can we uncover our own creativity? If you can’t remember ever feeling creative, can we awaken that essential part of you that has gone dormant? What would it be like to feel joyful immersion in the present moment? How would it feel to pause the whirlwind of things left to accomplish on your adulting lists? Are you creative? 

I say - YES. You are creative. You are human. As a parent, you are constantly learning, re-inventing, growing. When we turn toward creativity, we start to shift into a whole new way of being. You are creative. 

Being in touch with your creative self begins with a cycle of engaging in something fully, allowing the process to stand on its own without focus on a product, and taking time to notice how you feel. Each of us may find our own way eventually - after all, that’s what being creative is ultimately all about! But to get started, to break out of old patterns, it might be helpful to play creatively with others. 

One of the best ways I know to unlock creativity is through music.

In workshops and classes, we explore lots of ways to make music! We’ll learn what ‘playing with music’ means - and play with silly sounds, our singing voices, moving our bodies to a beat, making up new rhymes and more. You may have ideas about if you ‘can sing’ or not. You may have some ideas about if you ‘can dance’ or not. You may have ideas about if you ‘are creative’ or not. I’m here to meet you wherever you are, to encourage you and help you discover a new way to play. Because you are. You are creative.

So. You want to flex those creative muscles? Want to tap into your wellspring of creative powers? Here’s an activity you can do at home right now, today.

This one is for you, the grown-ups:

Skyscape to Bach

1. Open your favorite music app and cue up the “Bach Double Violin Concerto in d minor BWV 1043 Largo ma non Tanto” - I love violinist Hillary Hahn, but there are lots of recordings of this piece. This is the slow second movement. In my playlist I add a silent track to follow the Bach. 
2. Lie on your back on a yoga mat or comfy carpeted space (remove race-cars and legos first!)
3. Push play
4. Imagine your toes are paintbrushes - reach them toward the sky, flex and point your feet, put some space between your toes and wiggle them around. Allow your legs to relax - knees can be straight or bent or anywhere you like as long as your back is comfy on the earth.
5. Now, take a breath. Feel your lungs fill, empty and fill. 
6. Start to ‘draw’ the shapes of clouds in the air above you, imagine you are painting on the ceiling with your paintbrush clad feet. Your skyscape will shift and change, just like the clouds in the sky, and there will be layers and changes over time. Follow the music or do your own thing. 
7. Breathe. Take breaks to stretch, twist, relax.
8. Allow your painting to grow larger and smaller, explore space beside you as if your canvas is the shape of a dome - planetarium style. 
9. When the song is over, land your feet on the floor with knees bent or stretch out legs savasana style. 
10. Breathe.
11. Allow the silence for one minute (or more).
12. Notice your heartbeat. Notice your breath. 
13. Place one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly. 
14. You are creative. 

There are as many ways to access your creativity as there are moments in a lifetime. I love finding new ways to unlock creative flow - for myself, for others. Here are a few ideas for activities you can do with your children. There’s a link below for 2 more Creativity Cues to do when you have a few minutes to yourself. Please supervise water play 100% of the time.

Mini-Creativity Cues to enjoy together or on your own:

• Draw with your non-dominant hand
• Sing Old macDonald Had a Farm and make as many silly animal sounds as you can, the more realistic and silly the better
• Finger paint to music
• Pick as many shades of red-orange-yellow as you have in your crayon bin and fill every bit of your paper with warm colors
• Pick as many shades of green-blue-violet as you have in your crayon bin and fill every bit of your paper with cool colors
• Sing ‘There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o” and instead of clapping on the missing letters, make up a new move for each letter. (jump, slide, hop, hop, jazz hands…) 
• Sing “There was a mommy had a friend and ______ was their name-O”  etc, make it up with family members. 5 letters is obviously the most easy but you can change the rhythm and get other names to work. (Because you are creative!!!) Clap or make motions for the missing letter verses. 
• Make color oceans - put ⅓ oil, ⅔ water and a few drops of food coloring in clear bottles with secure lids. Move your oceans around and then watch it settle. Variation - add glitter. Sing She Sells Seashells from the free Hello Everybody App while you watch your oceans settle.
• Bubbles partner game - one person blows bubbles, the other follows the bubbles until they pop on their own. 
• Bubble pop - one person blows bubbles, the other person pops. Sing 2 notes: high/low or sol/do or five/one or dominant/tonic. First higher note is for getting ready to pop, lower resting tone pitch for the actual pop. Don’t worry about which pitch, just high and low is fine. 
• Make mud pies
• Pour water from bucket to bucket, and really watch the flow of the water. Play with speed, height, volume. Get out your plastic funnels and buckets.
• Sink or float? Find objects that sink and objects that float. Watch the bubbles on sunken objects. Watch the movement of the water as objects are added, as they float and sink. 
• Paint things - rocks, plastic shower liners (outside), old pieces of wood, cardboard boxes headed for the recycle bin. Mix colors and get messy.
• Tie Dye - stained shirts, old washcloths and dish towels, socks. Get weird with your scrunching and rubber banding and ties - see what happens when you play. Use a spray bottle instead of dunking your cloth, do something not in the directions.
• Plant something, water something, transform a space, no matter how small
• Re-visit your favorite park and actually get up on the equipment to play
• Using a straw, blow a cotton ball across the table to your partner, then they can toss it back or use a straw to blow it back to you. 
• Make a stretchy hula hoop loop with 20-25 hair scrunchies all looped together and use it for a family dance, ‘horse and cart’ game, or merry-go-round. 

You get the idea! I could go on, but I want you to stop reading and go play. Come back and let me know your favorite Creativity Cues in the comments.

To get 2 more detailed activity flows, email Cheryl for a free PDF download of Cue My Creativity - 3 DIY Activities to Unlock Your Creative Self

Be sure to listen to our new podcast Let’s Make Music Together^® with Cheryl

Music Together is about connecting - on several levels, over an extended period of time. Classes are playful and enriching, with benefits that extend far beyond the classroom. 

When you first attend a class, at the beginning of every class, every child is welcomed with the ‘Hello Song.’ We like to include the grown-ups, too, because you’re an incredibly important part of the class. In this environment of melody, harmony, contrasting rhythms and engaging movement activities, children in all stages of development are invited to participate in their favorite way. 

If that means watching the teacher, or wandering into the circle, that’s OK. If it means they start bouncing and clapping, that’s OK. If it means they freeze and their beautiful fresh eyes get wide as they take in this new experience, that’s OK. 

In fact, it’s more than ‘OK.’ It is essential that we allow children to develop and grow in their own time. There is no ‘age’ that is right for music development. What is right is that we offer a playful, enriching music class experience with repetition and reinforcement at home and SPACE for our children to absorb, assimilate, experiment, and express.

When we allow children to cycle through receptive and expressive modes, they form powerful connections in the brain to understand and speak the language of music. And it is a language - so you won’t hear full paragraphs first. Instead, you’ll learn how to notice the building blocks of music language expression. You’ll learn how to play games and have musical conversations with those building blocks to support your musicality and the development of your child’s musical being. 

I know - from years of teaching and from the research that gives Music Together its foundation - that

• All Children are Musical
• expressing ourselves through music is a gift we can all access in our unique ways, and
• Music Learning Supports All Learning^®

In fact, students who participate in Music Together classes as a natural part of their infancy, toddler-hood and preschool family life make significantly greater progress in cognitive, language, and physical developmental domains. Four-year-olds in a Music Together preschool program study made greater social-emotional gains than students who did not participate in Music Together classes. If you missed those early years, don’t sweat it or beat yourself up. Just jump in now, with Rhythm Kids^® or a good community choral program that supports the total health of your child. Once children are singing in tune and keeping an accurate beat, they may want to participate in more formal lessons or learn to translate the music in their brain to an instrument. More about that in another post. 

More good news - music classes with us are fun! Parents report that since becoming Music Together families, they sing and play more with their children at home. This feels particularly relevant today, when we have so many demands and activities pulling us in various directions. You don’t have to do all the things - just the carefully selected, high quality activities that give the most impact over time. Like Music. 

Worried about school? Music learning supports language and literacy skills. Music learning - wiring the brain to understand the language of music and to express music through breath, sound, and movement, build spatial awareness and mathematical reasoning skills. 

By now you realize I’m not interested in creating the next conservatory-bound prodigy. I’m interested in

• supporting each parent as they model the importance of creativity
• the physiological shift singing can bring to your emotional lives (sing the lullabies!)
• the long term development of resilient, healthy, happy families

Yes, music can do all that.  Music Learning Supports All Learning^®.

If you’re already attending classes, which songs do you find on repeat in your musical brain? Do you hear your children making sounds - or singing the last part of a phrase? Do you find music supports your daily routines? How do you use your books and curriculum recordings? 

If you’re not yet attending classes, consider booking a drop-in class to see what it’s like. We can’t wait to make music with you and your family!

Cheryl Anderson Sabo, M.M., RYT200, Director

Music Together Vivo director Cheryl Sabo recently sent out a pre-class e-mail to all families enrolled in classes for the Spring 2018 collection - Triangle.  In it, she discusses the "framework" of a Music Together class - the song slots that provide an overall structure to each class - the Hello and Goodbye songs, the playalong, and lullaby.  There's another "framework" song slot in class for me, and that is the lap song/dyad.  This song typically happens towards the beginning of class, and its primary focus is the bond between caregiver and child.  Lap songs tend to have a lot of bouncing/tickling/hugging, while dyads - where pairs are created either from caregiver-to-child or caregiver-to-caregiver - tend to have movements like joining hands to rock/row or play pattycake.  There are so many fun songs throughout the Music Together collections that serve the lap song/dyad purpose well - "Trot, Old Joe" from our winter session's Bells collection, I know, is a favorite of many!

As a newer teacher, I must confess that I found myself getting into a bit of a personal rut with lap songs.   I'm entering my 9th semester of teaching with Triangle (the last collection that I've experienced as a parent, but haven't previously taught!), and I found myself wondering if I was doing this slot in the lesson plan justice.  Don't get me wrong, I could see my families were having fun with them each week - their laughs are infectious! My doubt isn't a reflection on them at all, but a bit of my own teaching insecurity.  So I decided to challenge myself!

Before each new semester, Music Together Worldwide hosts a Songs and Skills Training for teachers who will be teaching the upcoming collection.  It's a day long workshop, and the afternoon is dedicated to running through the entire upcoming collection with different Music Together teachers from the area leading different songs.  You have to meet certain requirements to lead a song, and I first started leading songs myself last Spring.  When I looked at what songs were available to lead for Triangle collection, I was immediately drawn to "Allee Galloo."  I remembered learning a line dance version of this when I took my initial Music Together Teacher Training in Hopewell, NJ back in 2015, and we had so much fun with it!  When you lead at one of these workshops you need to present it multiple ways, so leading it as a lap song (and also as a line dance, among other ways) became my challenge to get me back into my lap song groove. 

The workshop went very well, and I had a blast leading "Allee Galloo" - but it wasn't until an experience I had a couple of days later that I really felt like my "challenge" was complete.  My daughter was home on spring break, and she'd asked Alexa to play Music Together music.  "Allee Galloo" is one of the songs that Music Together Worldwide has available for free streaming on Alexa, and it came on while we were listening.  My daughter got the BIGGEST smile on her face!  For those of you who don't know me, my daughter is non-verbal at the moment, and uses an iPad with a speech application to communicate with us.  She is 5 years old, and currently has a grid of about 24 buttons/folders that gives her access to hundreds of words now - but this access is fairly recent.  She's never really been able to tell me her favorite songs, things to do, etc.  I could guess, of course, but it is a whole different world when they can tell you!  So when she got this big smile on her face, I made sure she had her iPad and asked her if this was one of her favorite songs.  She said yes!  When I asked her why she loved this song, her response was simple: 

Wow.  I really was a bit speechless in the moment.  And it still makes me tear up a bit as I'm writing this. Talk about a "from the mouths of babes" moment! In just 3 words she showed me how much I was overthinking, and put the most important thing front and center - the bond between caregiver and child! Challenge over, lesson learned for me!  It may have felt too repetitive, or not "enough," to me - but that repetition and that bond with me is precisely what my daughter loves - even now at 5 years old! (And yes, as soon as she said that, we absolutely did "Allee Galloo" as a lap song right in the middle of the dining room!)

So, Music Together Vivo community, as we start on a new semester, I pass on a challenge to you too:  Embrace the repetition! It can seem boring to us as adults, but children thrive on repetition and structure!  Of course it's OK to take a break after the thousandth time of bouncing along to "Trot, Old Joe" - but don't forget to come back to it again.  The bond created by simple moments like bouncing and singing together is totally worth the sore knees!

Today was one of those days that just felt like it was going on and on and on and on and on...
 

My daughter, we'll call her S, woke up early this morning and was rarin' to go right away - no slow, cuddly Saturday morning for us this morning!  She reminded me a bit of one of the characters from her favorite movie, Anna from Frozen (see the image and caption to the right!) - the sky was awake, so S was awake, and she needed to play!
 

We had a nice breakfast, and then the whole family went out to do some shopping at the outlets...completely forgetting that it's Veteran's Day weekend.  The stores. were. packed.  Trying to corral any 5 year old in that kind of craziness is a losing battle, and we definitely felt like we had fought (and lost) that battle by the time we headed home.  We had a 45 min drive home, and I actually fell asleep in the car.  My husband fell asleep on the couch for a bit after we arrived home.  S just kept on going, as full of energy as she was when she woke up this morning.  In some ways it was absolutely adorable.  Watching her grab her grandmother's hand and try to give her toys to play with her, listening to all of her exclamations of happiness...but then there was also the constant walking away from us (and necessary redirection) while we were out, the fighting about going to the bathroom (because one does not just leave their toys to go the bathroom, don't you know that mommy?), the constant asking for snacks (despite having had plenty to eat already and it being almost dinner-time).  By the time bedtime came around, I was beat, and I had half a mind to say to Daddy that he could put her to bed tonight.  But as I sat in the rocking chair waiting for her to come back from the bathroom one last time, I realized that I'd really love to have her sleepy cuddles tonight if she'd slow down enough to cuddle. 
 

When she came back, we shut off the light, and I started singing her "her" lullaby - "Su La Li" from Music Together's Maracas collection (her having a lullaby that's "hers" is rather new for us, but that's a whole different post!).  When I sing it, I sing the first verse on the syllables from the collection.  The second time I sing the lullaby on "I Love You" and the 3rd time I use her first and middle name. The final time, I hum the melody.  Normally she doesn't fall asleep right away, and we cuddle for a bit before she really settles.  Tonight, though, she was out like a light before I was even done with the verse I sing on her name! 

I was really struck by that moment.  I felt her body melt into mine as she slowly slipped off into dreamland.  It's not the first night she's fallen asleep on me like that, but tonight it really reminded me how safe and happy she must feel in my arms to be able to fall asleep being held like that.  Coming to that realization, in that moment, I then felt all the stress of my day melt away and just felt awestruck at the power that a simple lullaby held for both of us tonight.  For her, the power to soothe and calm from a seemingly unending hectic day into deep sleep within just a few minutes.  For me, the power to melt away the day's stress and appreciate that my 5 year old and I can still have moments like that together. The bond I felt with her as she snuggled into a deep sleep while I was singing was incredible. I know the day is soon coming when she won't be able to fit in my lap for stories or lullabies anymore, which makes moments like this even more precious to me.  

I hope nobody reading this assumes that this is what nights are like at our house all the time - trust me, they aren't!  Last weekend no amount of lullabies helped S go to sleep earlier than 11:30pm, and we had middle-of-the-night waking issues to deal with too.  But, no matter how the night or day goes, lullabies are always a part of our routine and tonight's experience was the perfect reminder of the power they have for both S and for myself.  

Does your family have a lullaby you call "yours"?  Remember, any song can be a lullaby...it's more about how the song is sung than the song itself!  Share your favorite lullaby in the comments!

We're so glad to see you!

Welcome to Music Together Vivo's blog.  Our center director, Cheryl Sabo, wanted a way to be able to reach more families with tools to support music learning in early childhood. We will also expand on some of the concepts your Music Together Vivo teachers bring up in class here in the blog, so make sure to follow and engage.
 

If there's a topic you have any questions about, or would like to hear more about from us, please let us know by sending us a quick e-mail