A fave Sitter2Mom of ours – Jen Bonura – also attended a Kindermusik class with her 20 month old son at the classes Upper West Side location.. Check out what she had to say about her experience…

My son and I recently ventured uptown to Kindermusik‘s new Upper West Side location.   We were excited to try something new.   Upon entering the room (which also serves as a pre-school classroom for the Redeemer Presbyterian Church), Julian was excited to see instruments out on the floor to play with.   The Kindermusik program starts with some free time of exploring the instrument of the day which in our case were “rhythm sticks.”   They look like textured drum sticks and of course Julian used them to drum on the floor like he was a member of the rock band Foo Fighters.

After the sticks were collected we moved on to the structured time.   I hadn’t realized it at first, but there was a theme to class – this week was “Trains,” much to my son’s delight.  This is a music and movement class so our chug-a-chuga-a dance moves were hilarious for the adults and a blast for the kids.  The next few songs were all fun activities that I was amazed Julian picked up on so quickly — In and out and up and down with hand movements and music.

Then we moved on to parachute time – what class is complete without the ever-anticipated parachute?  I’m always amazed to see that every kid responds differently to it – some want to jump on top, some want to run underneath, either way they all have fun as the adults got an arm workout shaking away.   We continued shaking with colorful pieces of fabric that were handed out to the kids.

Class ended with a book about a New York City subway car.   We’ve been to a lot of music classes and none of them had a story-time which I thought was a nice twist, especially since it went with the theme.

I thought this class had a lot of similar activities to other music classes we’ve been to, but I would say that this class has a bit more structure and in my opinion is geared more towards toddlers.   My son is 20 months and he was excited about the different transitions, but was more interested in climbing the pre-school chairs other non-music class paraphernalia than really partaking in the activity for the entire time.   In contrast, there was a 3 year old girl in the class who was just beside herself with excitement the entire time and anticipated the next activity.   The teacher was lovely – she was engaging and knew how to balance the class with the older and younger kids.   Also, I’m not sure if this is a new class, but there were only 5 kids in class which might be ideal for parents who aren’t a fan of the very loud and aggressive music class.   In my case, my son is much more in the explore phase and another music class type of set up works better for him.   This is why trial classes are so key – your child’s interests can change drastically from age to age and every child gravitates towards something different.  We were appreciative to have had the opportunity to check out Kindermusik.

A few logistical notes to parents and caregivers – your stroller needs to be collapsed and stored in at the lower level before heading up to class.   This important to know in advance, if like me your child’s entire life is in your stroller basket.  Also, all shoes (adults and kids) must come off upon entering class so remember to wear socks.

– Jen is an Event Planner and stay at home mom (aka educator, security guard, cook and master negotiator) living on the UWS and enjoying all the city has to offer with her son.