Children enjoy humming songs, singing along as well as dancing to the beat all day long! They groove to their favorite songs and never get tired of listening to them. There are a lot of developmental benefits for kids to participate in children’s music classes as well as dance lessons. Learning about music and dance at a young age helps kids with their mathematics skills, has tremendous benefit to their physical development - both fine and gross motor skills - as well as has many other positive effects on children.
1. Mathematics Skills
When learning a music instrument for the first time, you also have to understand the fundamentals of music learning. Some kids’ music classes teach children about music theories and concepts, and many music concepts and rules are made up of mathematics concepts. Music consists of theories, time signatures (meter signatures), rhythms and beats, which are mostly based on numbers and patterns. During children’s music classes, children might have to divide a piece of music into sections, keep or repeat a consistent beat, learn about the rhythm, understand basic fractions to count the number of beats, and recognize patterns and repetitions in songs.
As for dancing, it often goes hand in hand with music. They are basically inseparable most of the time. The rhythm of the music usually determines the rhythm of the dance. They also have a lot of other characteristics in common. Musicians and dancers both rely on rhythmic patterns, and they both respond to a certain beat. When attending kids’ music classes and dance lessons, whether your kids are practicing how to play a music instrument or trying to perform the new dance that they have learned, they are essentially also practicing some mathematics skills.
2. Creativity & Imagination
Unlike many other subjects, there’s no absolute answer for kids’ craft classes. The same topic might have a million different ways to be interpreted and expressed in arts by different people. The legendary Leonard da Vinci once said: “The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.” While the Italian Renaissance artist’s quote is applied to the medium of paintings, the same can be said to the broader field of art, as well as children’s art classes. That is to say that whatever can be imagined, can be created. In a lot of the children’s craft classes, kids are often encouraged to explore their creative side by expressing themselves freely through their pictures and crafts, and come up with new ideas to make and finish their art projects. Whether they are working on the paintings or crafts individually or in a group setting, kids are often given the time and space during the children’s art classes to think and have their own interpretation about the topics that they are given. There are also many kids’ craft classes and art jamming sessions available for both children and their families that allow everyone to have the freedom to paint whatever they want in a relaxed setting.
As young children might not have gained sufficient vocabulary to fully communicate their ideas, they might find it challenging to fully express what they want using speech. Apart from having the freedom to paint and make their own art pieces, children’s art classes and kids’ craft classes also give younger children a chance to reflect the things that they are imagining and constructing in their minds onto their drawings and art pieces.