Imagine That!

Okay, so now that I sort of know how to blog, I have to share what an amazing time we had in our Imagine That: Toys I Make, Trips I Take class today. I'll admit, I was nervous, and not without reason. We had explored the Toy Shop in Weeks 1-4, and in Weeks 5-8, we were successfully able to transition into a musical discussion of boats, including songs about boats, stories about boats, building boats, and sitting in a variety of pretend boats. However, today, we started focusing on trains! Excuse me? How dare we spend only four weeks discussing boats when there was certainly more boat fun to be had!

It consistently amazes me how we adults so easily assume that children are getting bored with something just because we find it repetitive. We tend to forget that children thrive on repetition. Nonetheless, these children's parents paid for a class that included toys, boats, and trains, and my job is to give everyone their money's worth.

Eventually, the kids realized that trains were just as much fun as boats, and they came up with some great impromptu ideas that reminded me why this program is called Imagine That! We took our trains to Disneyland, to the fair, to the forest, and finally -- you guessed it -- to a boat. We created human trains while sitting on the floor, chugging in a line, and dancing across the room. We sang a train echo song, which taught me that these kids really are making tremendous strides in their singing ability. During Sharing Time, we even learned how to square dance!

The children's social skills seemed to be blossoming as fruitfully as their musical skills. Formerly shy singers led the group in song. Children who had been reluctant to interact volunteered ideas for new activity adaptations. All of the kids seemed to be learning how to balance their needs for instant gratification with the desire to work cooperatively with the group. After class, several of the children stayed to finish reading our library book about Johann Sebastian Bach. Even their attention spans are growing!

Could 3 1/2 - 5-year-olds receive all of these benefits from any other program? I doubt it. What's so exciting about Imagine That, like all of Kindermusik's core curricula, is its ability to effectively utilize the zone of proximal development to nurture the whole child-- in other words, to meet the children where they are and gently move them forward in all of the areas in which they need to grow.

I love my job.