Active

Creative

Fun

Improves cognitive and physical skills

• speech and language development
• listening
• mathematical skills and conceptual understanding
• fine and gross motor skills
• cross-body midline activities

Provides social and emotional development

Develops creativity

Helps prepare children for the learning journey ahead of them

Created and led by a qualified primary school teacher, Mini Minstrels offers your child a chance to participate in a structured, creative and fun music session, enhancing development in all areas of cognitive and social emotional development.

ACTIVE PARTICIPATION

Research over many years has shown that regular attendance in a structure music programme improves development of cognitive skills, particularly literacy skills of speech and language development, listening skills and pre-reading skills. By listening to music children develop a better understanding of pitch, volume, rhythm and rhyme, all of which are needed to identify the phonemes in speech. A research project in 2013 published in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience looking at the biological impact of preschool music on processing speech noise revealed that children with musical training were able to more quickly neurally process speech in background noise than children with no musical training. More recent research has highlighted the importance of active participation, rather than passive listening. The Harmony Project, by North Western University in 2014, found that children who regularly attend music classes and actively participate showed larger improvements in how brain processes speech and reading scores than those in passive classes. Even babies benefit - a six month study at McMaster University in 2012 published in Developmental Science revealed that babies attending an active music group had better sensitivity to pitch and better early communication skills, such as pointing to objects and waving. 

At Mini Minstrels children actively participate in all sections of the class, singing, dancing, playing instruments, playing with props and of course our wonderful parachute.

THE CHOICE OF MUSIC AND IMPORTANCE OF NURSERY RHYMES

As referred to above when children listen and participate in songs they hear the sounds that vowels and consonants make and this helps them to form the words of our language. They also here pitch, volume and voice inflection, rhythm and rhyme all of which are key to both speaking and reading. Children pronounce words over and over again in song and often sing words before they speak them. Nursery Rhymes are usually patterns and this helps children to remember them. Sometimes they also tell a story teaching children events happen in sequence (Miss Polly had a dolly). They often contain numbers, counting and other mathematical words (big and little, tall and small). Nursery rhymes introduce rhyme (incy wincy spider), onomatopoeia (baa baa black sheep) and alliteration (dingle, dangle scarecrow). Nursery rhymes that involve movement help with co-ordination, dramatic play and fine and gross motor skills (for example twinkle twinkle little star). Sharing nursery rhymes and physical touch helps children bond socially (row, row, row your boat) and funny rhymes can help children develop a sense of humour. Nursery rhyme characters often have different emotions (poor sad mamma duck without her 5 little ducks) helping children name and identify feelings.

Tony Stead, senior national literacy consultant for Mondo Publishing in New York, described research showing that in 1945, the average elementary school student in USA had a vocabulary of 10,000 words. Today, children have a vocabulary of only 2,500 words. Mr Stead sites the lack of parents reading to children as well as children not memorising rhymes, the bread and butter of traditional children's literature, as the main problem. In addition he points out that listening comprehension precedes reading comprehension. In order for a child to understand what they are reading, they have to be able to hear the language first. A lot of the traditional rhymes, such as ‘Jack and Jill’ and ‘Humpty Dumpty,’ are repetitious and allowed us to memorize basic structures and patterns in the English language, then put it together. It’s important that young children learn to memorize through verse.

At Mini Minstrels we have had music specifically written that recognises the importance of repetition, rhythm and rhyme and also enhances gross and fine motor skills. A large section of every Mini Minstrels class is devoted to traditional nursery rhymes that children will hear in their every day lives, at playgroups, play centre and kindy. 

CROSSING THE MIDLINE

Crossing the midline of your body is the ability to be able to move one part of your body into the opposite side of your body. For example, scratching your elbow, or reading from left to right. Crossing the midline of your body helps build pathways in the brain and is an important prerequisite skill required for the appropriate development of various motor and cognitive skills. Children who have difficultly crossing the body’s midline often have trouble with skills such as reading, writing, completing self care skills and participating in sports & physical activities.  

At MIni Minstrels we recognise the significance of this skill and actively promote activities that cross the midline.  

BALANCE, CO-ORDINATION, SPATIAL AWARENESS and ATTENTION

For many years people believed that movement and thinking were two completely separate tasks performed by our brains. Today however, scientists know this is not the case and most neuroscientists agree that movement and cognition are powerfully connected. The vestibular system controls our balance, co-ordination and spacial awareness and it is the first system to develop an organised response to sensory input. It is also has a close relationship with the systems that regulate incoming sensory data - safety, survival, arousal and attention. Like reciting nursery rhymes children are not developing their vestibular systems as they used to. An under-developed vestibular system means the brain does not interpret the messages correctly leading to the child feeling unsafe and having a higher level of arousal and less attention.  

During Mini Minstrels classes children are encouraged to dance, jump and move their bodies helping to build better balance and co-ordination and supporting development of the vestibular system. 

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The six month study at McMaster University mentioned above also researched social skills and found that babies attending active music classes smiled more, where easier to soothe and became less distressed when things didn't got their way. The researchers concluded that this was a result of the child and parent or caregiver interaction.

Within each Mini Minstrels class a whole section of the class is devoted to bonding with the parent/caregiver with lots of physical touch encouraging social skills and interaction. A number of the songs we use include emotions or humour. In addition at the beginning of each class we sing an individual hello to every member of the group and at the end of each class we share a group song before we say goodbye to Minstrel.

CREATIVITY

Within many structured activities that our young children participate in there is often little room for imagination and creative play. At Mini Minstrels we regularly include time for freedom to be creative with either our props or our instruments. We also include a large amount of imaginary play for example pretending to be animals, or driving a car.

CREATING A LOVE OF MUSIC AND LEARNING AND PROMOTING SCHOOL READINESS

Mini Minstrels classes are especially designed to be fun and engaging promoting a love of singing, dancing and making music that we hope the children who come to our classes will take forward into their school lives.

But even if they do not continue to play musical instruments the value of musical training in the early years from speech and language development, mathematical concepts, gross and fine motor skills and social emotional skills will all contribute to an improved early childhood development and better school readiness.