- Will you consider this.

We explore the power of music and its impact on a child's brain development.

I'm Christine Zak-Edmonds join me as we learn more about Kindermusik.

(soft music) We've all known little ones who love to sing and dance all that energy at Kindermusik in Bloomington, the very best music and movement education is shared with your child and they have fun while soaking it all in.

Joining me today is Katie Henderson and her daughter Grace Henderson, to share all they have to offer at Kindermusik.

Thanks for coming over.

- Thanks for having us today, we're excited to be here.

- First give me the definition of everything that Kindermusik has to offer.

- Well, it's hard to put it in a nutshell what Kindermusik is but I guess if we had to say what it is in a nutshell, we say that it's a developmental music program.

So we're doing kind of three things.

We're first doing music because we know that kids are ready to do music from a very young age.

I mean, babies, we start kids, babies out of right out of the womb, eight weeks, and they're ready to have a steady beat, experiences and sing.

Babies can even sing the first interval that kids all over the world learned to sing ♪ La la la la ♪ Yeah, I've heard seven month old babies go, ♪ La la la la la la ♪ To echo that.

And so they're ready to be exposed to music and we can start it really, really early.

They're ready to start to tune their ears in.

So we do music, you know, starting really young.

But then we do it for a specific reason too, We do it for the why, which is because it fosters whole child development.

So in the things beyond music, the areas of language and cognitive, physical abilities, social, emotional, you know, math, reasoning skills, all those things are supported when we do active music making.

And that's really because I loved your lead in about brain development because music is one of the only things that actively doing it activates the entire brain.

So if we put you on an MRI while we were, while we were playing, but more importantly, actively doing it together, your whole brain would light up.

So the brain is specific for different areas, for learning, for language and different things, but in music making, it affects the whole brain.

So that's why we can affect whole child development using music.

- So that's top, bottom, left, right, front, back.

- Right, everything.

And it also brings us to the frontal lobe of our brain.

So, you know, you could be sad or, you know, in a bad mood and you put on your favorite tune and it starts to make you happy.

Well that is having a shift in your brain to the frontal lobe of the brain.

And that's where kids need to be for optimal learning.

So we do it to foster development.

And then the third reason we do it is for parent education.

Do you want to speak to that at all?

- Yes, speak because you've been a student.

And this your parent.

- Yes!

Exactly.

Parents, especially I've had a lot of young parents in this last year that come to us and that's their first time raising a child and they're able to bring their two year old in, or their toddler and- - (coughs) Excuse me.

(Grace laughs) - [Katie] Bless you.

- Learn how to engage with their child, learn how to support their development, encourage language.

We have story time in each lesson, we encourage the parents to read with their kids, to sing with their kids as they're building language skills, to use sign language, and really it's an educational experience for the parents to be able to learn how their child develops at each developmental stage.

- Right, but this isn't not the little tiny ones.

This is for like two and three-year-olds or... - Well, it's all.

- Really?

The tiny too?

- The tiny ones all along because we're setting the foundation from the time that they're really, really little.

So here's an example.

So we talked to parents of babies, there's an example for little babies.

We start to move them because they don't move their own limbs independently.

- [Christine] Or they do.

- Right, yeah, right.

Do it to a little baby and you get them to reach and they'll do this because they can't reach.

So we're telling the parents move your baby to learn so your baby can learn to move.

And so we're moving them in all different ways.

And one of the ways we move them is cross laterally.

We take their toe to their hand and we tell parents, exercise them cross laterally that helps their movement and helps them develop and have a range of motion, range of movements.

But then we also say the reason we're moving cross laterally is because that stimulates a part of the brain called the corpus callosum that helps the brain to integrate.

So it helps the thinking side and the creative side work together.

And that's really important in reading and writing later on.

So we're laying the foundation with the parents to help them understand what they do is purposeful.

And then to encourage them to do it at home, you know.

We teach them in class, you know, but we want them to take it home.

- Yeah, one of the things about Kindermusik, which is really great, as the extensive home materials.

So parents can listen to their albums for each curriculum, each unit that we do at home and they can do activities at home, they can bring their instruments home and just have a whole week-long experience, not just 45 minutes each week.

- So what kind of programs are there?

So what's an example of what they take home.

- Oh, you mean in terms of materials.

So we have amazing digital online materials, so every theme which we change themes every month with the little ones, every theme has an album.

Animals at the farm, carnival of music, splash.

- [Christine] Tractors.

- Right, yeah.

Transportation.

And so every month they'll have an album that they can listen to.

Actually, we have an app now, of course.

They can put it on their phones.

And so we tell the parents that it's associative listening because the kids are hearing songs that we've done something to.

So it's not just random listening.

So parents will report like after a while, like the hello song comes on and there'll be like, their baby will light up because they're associating that with an expect experience.

- I want you just to give me a little- These flies!

- [Katie] I know!

- They need to go away.

So sing a little bit of the hello song for me right now, if you will, and for all of the people out there.

- Sure, we have several, but we'll pick one.

♪ Hello, how do you do?

♪ ♪ It's good to be with you ♪ ♪ Hello, how do you do?

♪ ♪ It's good to be with you ♪ ♪ Hello, how do you do?

♪ ♪ It's good to be with you ♪ ♪ It's good to be together here with you ♪ ♪ And stop ♪ The children from a very early age is one of the things we do specifically in our program ♪ And stop ♪ And I teach level two, which is primarily two year olds, young threes, sometimes older ones.

And they're always "and stop."

You hear that and it's so cute.

- And that's an example of, again, we're working with those kids on inhibitory control.

'Cause that's one of the hardest things for kids at two to do is to stop and control their bodies.

And we can do it in a fun way, they go.

They love to stop.

Then they go, "oh, go, go more, more."

- So this is all with Kindermusik because there's national Kindermusik, Why Kindermusik?

- [Grace] Yes, international.

- Kindermusik, specifically, is one of the only research-based.

Actually, really the only fully researched base music and movement curriculum.

So it's not our program or just something that we do.

It was developed with musicians, of course, but speech language pathologist, child psychologists, movement specialists, all experts in the field to make sure that it was developmentally appropriate and developmentally sound.

And so Kindermusik is in 73 countries, I think, around the world.

They're actually internationally is one of the fastest growing movements of Kindermusik and foreign countries, and there's 5,000 plus educators or were before COVID, I don't know now.

- And how long have been doing this?

- This fall will be my 28th year.

- So it's just before she was born.

- Yeah, her brother, her the next in line, her brother Benjamin was about 18 months when I found Kindermusik in Chicago.

And then when we moved down to Bloomington.

- You brought it with you.

Well, that was very nice.

And other than now that you're a teacher, what do you think you gained the most from, by starting out in Kindermusik from your mom took you when you're eight weeks old, I bet, right?

- Yeah.

Yeah, when I was very, very little.

I think, one of the things I love most about Kindermusik and just what we do in our program is to encourage families and children to connect.

And I just love to connect with people, relationship building.

And I think that emotional side of what we do at Kindermusik, teaching kids empathy from a really early age is just something that has really stuck with me my whole life.

As well as music, I was a music major in college and that is, I'm sure primarily intervened to Kindermusik.

- Right, but your dad, your family is a musical family.

- Yes, a musical family for sure.

We have a song for that too.

A song for just about everything.

- The musical family?

- Yeah.

♪ We're a musical family ♪ ♪ So tap your hands along with me ♪ ♪ Signing playing, we will be making music ♪ - Oh, cute.

- Oh man, yeah.

So yes, music has been a part of my life since I was in the womb.

- Before you were born.

- Yes, before I was born.

And all through my education in public school and through college and now my career.

- I never thought about that connect piece though, because I mean, we are music connections.

- [Christine] Yes, tell me about that, your foundation.

- Well, yeah, I just was going to say one of our founding, we have founding values if you will, our mission.

And the first one is to connect because it's a kind of a prerequisite for anything else.

And I think parents today don't understand the way we did, not to undermine them at all, but you know, when we were young, you know, we were down on the floor with our kids.

- There weren't cell phones to be taking your attention away.

- [Grace] Toys with instant gratification.

- So one of the things we do is to give them that time, kind of forced that time, of just you're on the floor with your kids, used to be really natural.

Parents would come in and just start playing.

Now sometimes it's like, "oh, what do I do?"

Or they'll even say, "do I have to do this?"

So it's interesting that she said, you know, the connection because she is a wonderful connector with people and of people.

But for our foundation sake.

In 2008, we decided become a not-for-profit, What I learned, I came as a musician, you know, to Kindermusik.

And I thought we can introduce kids early to music and make musicians and they'll become, cause I knew kids where I was a pianist and I knew kids were ready to, you know, do music early, but I knew they weren't ready to learn traditional piano at three years old or whatever.

And so I came as a musician, but then I learned so quickly that it was so much more than music and it was about how we could help parents and help kids.

And I just had this burning passion, anytime I would encounter like a special needs child or someone that could come into the program, I'm like, we can help this parent.

We can help make this parent's job easier and help spur on the development of any child.

But we didn't find those children, you know, often because they wouldn't call us because you know, they... - Because they would think that they couldn't afford it.

- Right, right.

And so I was, you know, seeking out more and more special needs and at-risk kids.

And I was developing partnerships with community, places like spice of mark was our very first partnership in Bloomington-Normal for autistic kids.

We had a class and then at-risk two year olds.

And I just thought, you know, we need to do this on a bigger scale.

And so we decided to become a not-for-profit organization so that we could raise money to take Kindermusik, to larger groups of kids.

And so now we partner with agencies, Western Avenue Community Center, nursing homes, lots of places.

- Do you go to perform at nursing homes so some of the kids get to go?

- [Grace] Do class.

- Do classes at the nursing home?

- Yeah, at the nursing homes.

- It's works so beautifully, Christ.

It's amazing.

So what we do is take a typical class and we surround it with the seniors and we ask the seniors to help the little ones and show them things.

Well, if you think about it, so the things that we're working on with little ones and range of motion and putting words to songs are the things that seniors are losing.

And so when we say stretch your arm, show the little ones, you know, they think we're not making them do that, something we're not demeaning them.

- [Christine] They don't want to do.

- And they have that joyful experience of showing the little ones and also connecting with the little ones.

There's nothing that lights up a senior, like, you know, music and children.

- And children, especially, yes.

So now you said you partner with a lot of agencies and you're raising money for the foundation.

But this whole pause that we've had lately has kind of put a stop to a lot of different things.

So what do you do to recover?

What are your ideas to recover?

You said you have an app for everything, you know, your online, so does that help at all?

- One day at a time.

I mean, we have had trouble because we have typically a major fundraiser and several smaller fundraisers every year.

And of course with COVID, we haven't been able to do that.

And that supports the initiatives.

Things like, one of our biggest programs is Heartland Head Start where with Heartland Head Start where we serve close to a hundred kids.

So now we are, first of all, trying to, in our core business, you know, our core studio business also shrunk to about 50%.

So any residuals that we get from our core business, a typical family that would come and do classes goes to support those initiatives too.

So we've just suffered on a lot of fronts.

We're just hoping for a bit of a recovery here this year.

One of the things that we did just to try to be creative and flexible in our business was to start a new division.

That was a little bit more COVID friendly if you will.

And we started private lessons and musical theater we've done for a while, but with Grace's addition to our foundation or to our business, she kind of took that division because people weren't okay with doing one-on-one private lessons.

So we're hoping that that division really takes off and it really has.

- So did you do it via Zoom or did you do a lot on online.

- We had Zoom for a while and we did some outdoor classes in the summer and I've been teaching voice lessons outside actually.

So the division that she's talking about, the private lessons, we named Studio Connect, again, bringing that connection and we have private piano and strings and voice lessons.

And so I managed that studio, but I also teach voice lessons.

And so we were able to do voice lessons outside a lot in the summer and back in the spring and things like that.

But it's really a post Kindermusik programs.

We have a lot of kids who went all the way through Kindermusik graduated about age six or seven, and then start private lessons, either piano or strings or voice sometimes multiple.

- You go through, up until age seven.

And then you get some others who really have that level and so they continue.

- Yeah, so we have now our big musical theater program, we're putting on Annie this fall, in December.

Our show will be, we just did Seussical the musical over the summer, And kids just loved that.

And that is a great way to help kids connect.

If you talk to anyone who has a child in the arts, they'll just tell you that in their school experience, when they were able to be in choir or band or musical theater, those were where they connected.

- Special bonding time, it really is.

- [Grace] It really is.

- There are not lot of opportunities for littles to do that.

So we have great arts in Bloomington-Normal and Peoria, but a lot of those arts programs started like junior high.

And so kids would graduate and they're like, what are we doing next - What do I do now?

- You know, they don't want to practice piano or do something.

They want to be in a group.

And so our musical theater programs.

studio connect musical theater, SCMT.

We just kind of renamed it actually this fall, but started doing musical theater for little kids.

So they can, at seven years old, they can start musical theater.

- So that's first, second grade.

- [Grace] Yeah.

- So this summer it was wonderful.

- So have you followed any of the kids who have come, other than your own kids, who have come through the program and have gone on at their, you said full brain development.

Are their grades that much better than other students?

- There is a lot of research, one of my biggest regrets is not having the foresight to have someone who was a statistician or a scientist track all the kids.

But I can tell you just experientially, over the course of my 28 years, I see kids that are not only the best musicians, but the best soccer players, the best athletes, you know, think about basketball.

So one of the things, this is fun little story, one of the things we do when they're really young is put something in both of their hands, like an instrument.

So normally a kid is dominant.

They reached for an instrument with one hand, their dominant hand, and that's the hand they start using.

So we say, "no, use two hands."

Basketball, dribbling a basketball, being able to switch hands back and forth.

Soccer, same thing.

So they're amazing musicians.

They are the captains of the Scholastic bowl teams.

They are, I remember going to an orchestra concert, one time, a high school orchestra concert, and just looking and going.

I was like, count the Kindermusik kids and every first chair musician in that orchestra, but one was a Kindermusik kid.

You know, so, I know it, I mean, I see what they're doing out in the world and the jobs that they have.

And it could be, and I have parents tell me constantly, like I really accredit what they're doing beyond music to, you know, I mean, doctors who still play piano on the side or, you know, have a love of music.

I mean, there is a lot of research to support that too, the cognitive development.

- And I think too, in this time of COVID that we've had in isolation for kids, I have kids who were, their parents were worried about them mentally and emotionally.

Because of the isolation.

And one of the things that I loved about taking voice lessons through high school and college is that I just had a one-on-one connection with my voice teacher.

And it was just an opportunity to be mentored and seen and heard and supported.

And now I'm able to do that for students in a time, so I have several parents of students who were really struggling in this time when they were home, didn't have connections and were able to come to lessons each week and do that, or to come rehearse with a group of people and do a show and just really benefited from that emotionally and relationally.

And that's really cool.

- [Christine] Rewarding.

- Yeah, Yeah.

Something we couldn't trade and we're able to go to their performances now, their school things.

- And feel some sense of pride.

- And Feel some like, oh my goodness, we know where that kid was and what they're able to do.

And the confidence that they're able to build.

- And we did do it on Zoom too.

I mean, we had to transfer our whole business in 48 hours to Zoom.

And we had like our... - [Christine] And how many instructors do you have?

- We have, I think there are seven of us right now.

Well actually, probably more now with the new private lesson student we have, but we ran from 7 to 10 and we have a administrator too, a full-time administrator who kind of helps us manage the business of Kindermusik.

- And they need to be licensed.

You can't just be somebody, "Well, I know how to sing."

- [Grace] Right.

- Right Kindermusik teachers have to go through a pretty rigorous training program and be licensed and trained, both by the parent company and also through our own program, you know.

- Now, so Music Connections Foundation, you do have a website for that.

If anybody's interested in donating, or if you have anybody who is interested in being a licensed instructor.

- Or just coming to our classes.

We have people travel to our classes from different areas.

- I have two kids this summer in my Broadway Beginnings Camp that were from the Peoria area.

- So musicconnections.org.

So that's music connections with an S on the end, - [Christine] Are there two C's, music connections.

- Yes, two C's and an S. We didn't think about that one.

The website, you know, there probably weren't websites then, I don't know.

Dot musicconnections.org.

And this is a great time.

We start our classes just after labor day.

And so yeah, parents can come, we always offer them to come under no obligation initially, you know, they want to do a free preview class because there's nothing like experiencing a class to understand kind of what it is, parents are hesitant.

- And how long do the sessions last?

- We have an ongoing enrollment.

So just think about like your gym membership, once you enroll you're enrolled until you unenroll, but you can unenroll at any time.

And basically it's a school year enrollment.

So in the summer is separate.

We do summer camps and stuff, a little different, but through the school year, you can join at any time and come for, you won't want to quit.

- So what is your vision for the future?

What do you hope to further accomplish?

- Well, kind of makes me cry.

- [Christine] That's okay.

- I guess one of my biggest visions would be that 28 years from now.

- It's still going strong.

- There's still Music Connections Foundation.

And other Kindermusik programs.

You know, this has been hard time.

And so we are blessed that we are still hanging on, but I am, you know, my husband and I said to me, you don't know how lucky you are to do something that you love because not very many people get to go to work every day and do something that they love and means so much.

- And helping other people, exactly.

- So I hope we can recover.

- You're making me cry.

(Katie and Grace laughing) - I'm tearing up a little bit too.

- I just think about, so I moved home, pretty much in COVID at the end of my senior year of college.

And I remember my mom saying to me in the heat of trying to switch our business to Zoom, saying like, do we even keep going?

Like, can we even keep doing this?

And then her looking at me and saying, well, you're here.

This is a family business.

We're going to keep this going.

We have families that we serve that need us, and that love us.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- I would love, yeah, that's the other part of the business that I would love to see expanding 'cause the more successful we are with our core business, the more that we can give back to the community.

And that is really what we wanna do.

All my staff when they come in, I ask them what's your passion for giving back for serving?

And that's how we developed our foundation initiatives.

We developed a class for women from domestic violence situations, because there was a teacher that was really passionate about that.

We have a program for Hispanics that we developed because we had a teacher who was a language kind of expert.

- [Christine] Input from everyone.

- Yeah.

- Well, thank you so much.

I'm sorry I made you cry.

But you've enlightened us all.

And so maybe you'll get a couple of new people in there and keep that going for the next 28 years.

- [Katie] We'd love that.

Thank you.

- Thank you Katie, thank you Grace.

You're wonderful.

And thank you for joining us for Considered This.

Enjoy, stay healthy and safe.