I was wondering what sort of outside enrichment activities other parents children are involved in. For us my son is in gymnastics 1x/week and we try to practice forward rolls etc daily, I hope to get him involved in Suzuki piano when he turns 3 and we do a “course” called “Classical Magic” at home for learning Classical music composers, songs, theroy etc. How about you all?
My son goes to music classes wherein they get all kind of kids instruments to play.They get introduced to guitar and many more.I rea him music books.We play musical cd’s.Now m planning to join spanish classes for him and also Gymboree.Can i ask u what is “Classical Magic” course is all about.
Sapna
Sure, Classical Magic is a group of books, each with a CD, meant to teach the themes from 139 of the greatest classical music songs of all time. The way they are taught on the CD’s is that the theme is played first and then the theme is played again only with lyrics. They have a recommended course of study moving from the easiest to the most complicated pieces. These lyrics usually contain the composers name the name of the song and either some interesting historical facts or some memory linking devices to help you rmember the name/composer. The books contain biographies (Easy for children to understand and about 1-2 pages long) of the composers lives as well as musical vocabulary and historical facts about the musical time periods/instuments. In the backs of the books are the actual themes writyen out on the staff if you want your child to memorize those. My son and I have had great fun with these he has developed a love for Bach and constantly asks me to play his music.
Here is the website: http://www.classicalmagic.net/
That’s very interesting. I have never heard of them before, but I am definitely going to check them out!
We also do Classical Magic and I absolutely love it! We bought it at a homeschool conference and I’m sooo glad we did. It’s so funny–I’ve learned so much from it, so I know that my son most certainly has!
Additionally, we–go to a Mother’s of Preschoolers group 2x/month for play and interaction, go to preschool at the Children’s Museum 1x/week (parents stay and participate), go to the Children’s Museum to play as often as we can, go to story time at the library, go to anything “special” that’s in our town, whether or not it’s meant for children.
We go to a Mom & tot music/story group once a week. Older goes to the same music/story group goes to kindergarten 2 days per week, & is in dance once a week.
VERY INTERESTING
FEEL VERY SORRY FOR MY DAUGHTER. WE DON’T HAVE SUCH FACILITIES FOR TODDLERS HERE.
Hi there,
We live quite far from town and so don’t have too much available… 
No matter, there is a huge garden and lots of sunshine. So we do lots outside.
TABS
You’re lucky TABS, that is my ideal. I wish that we had space for my son to play outside. He has so much energy but we live in vegas in the desert so there is no grass to play on, the neighborhood is not safe and the weather is not conducive. The poor kid is stuck inside all the time.
our daughter is in a Kindermusik class now and I’ve taken her do various “baby gym” type classes as well. We hope to teach her to swim starting in January, starting with a program called Infant Swim Resource. It’s actually more of a water-survival lesson, but they introduce swimming to, and we’ll go from there. I am looking for other options as well. The Classical Magic sounds interesting, and I have got to remember to take her to the Children’s Museum- I have heard great things about it. Oh, and another thing that I noticed our daughter enjoys is going outside after dark and looking at the sky, pointing out the stars, moon, and we even saw Mars and Venus!
linzy, Vegas is a tough one. I lived there for awhile and my dad still does. When your child is older, rock climbing is an option and can be a lot of fun. Taking him to an indoor mall can help keep you cool, give interesting things to look at, and work off some energy by doing lots of walking - you could even use it as a teaching opportunity by talking about the various things that are there. I know that our malls here have indoor play equipment that Kayla loves to climb on and jump and crawl. There are also “bounce” places here that have those giant inflatable bounce houses- you might be able to find that there as well. Good luck!
I remember one more thing - MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) is a wonderful program, and they have them everywhere (even in small towns). You can find more information here http://www.mops.org/
In our town, it’s 2x/month and they feed the moms and the kids dinner. The children all get to play games, and the moms will do a craft or some other fun activity. The advantage, though, is really the information we get. They’ll pass our a calendar of all the activities going on in the town, and that’s so helpful. We had a super silly scientific circus come to town and I never would have heard about it without MOPS.