Julie Anne Searles: I invite lots of newborns to four-year-olds to come in and hear rhythms from around the world, be it from Japan or South Africa or Brazil, and we play with all kinds of different instruments and let the kids just explore the instruments, hear the music, and just let them feel their bodies and explore just few music.
Alice Hricak: First of all, it's so much fun, we have a great time coming and Emily has just showing here, she just enjoys the music and meeting all of her friends and playing with all the different instruments.
Julie Anne Searles: They are bonding with the people that bring them, whether it's their caretakers, their mother and father, it's a wonderful way for them to enjoy something together; an activity that brings them together.
Female Speaker: I come every week because she loves the music; she likes to play the instruments too.
Julie Anne Searles: It may look like it's just a free-flow and I am just picking, you know pulling songs out of a hat, but actually there is a structure to it. We start out with sort of a ritual song at the beginning and a ritual song at the end, meaning a hello song and a goodbye song. There is also lullabys in the very end.
The first couple of songs are songs that we usually have done over and over and over so that they start to learn the words of the songs. It's also for the adults to make them feel more comfortable with being in a music class with their little one.
And then I go to a dancing song and then I go to a slow song or maybe a chant and when I say, slow song or chant, means that everyone sort of sits down, if they feel like sitting down. But it's -- I alternate every other song as quite different and so there is a bit of a structure and it's never usually more than 12 songs long. That's about developmentally how much they can handle.
Female Speaker: I love music and she loves music, but this is the first time she is trying with another children and it was strange for her today but hope she likes.
Julie Anne Searles: It also helps with laying down neural patterning in their brain because right now in the first three years of life they are like little sponges. They are huge sponges, they are taking in so many things, and this is when they can take in all kinds of different sounds and it's developing their brain in wonderful ways.
If they hear language and music, it's easier for them to learn it, and if it's something they hear in the first three years of life, say it's Russian or Swahili, whatever the language, the sounds. They can then access it later on in their 20's or 40's and they already have the sounds in their brain. So they know that this happens with music.
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