1. Using song to support your teaching/parenting helps make information you’re presenting more meaningful and relevant to children.
2. Use faster music (140 - 160 beats per minute) to energize, increasing heart rate and bringing more oxygen to the brain.
3. Use song even as just a background/subliminal experience to aid in the development of effective communication skills, through familiarity of language patterns, exploration of expressive language (communicating ideas, feelings and needs), and the building of vocabulary and terminology appropriate to the child’s needs.
4. Children 0 - 8 years of age are primarily kinesthetic learners. Use songs affording fine-motor opportunities (fingerplays, hand signs, etc.).
5. Fun, repetitive “motivating” songs can provide plenty of early literacy extensions, e.g., copying/printing opportunities, shared reading of choruses, sentence/word puzzles, i.e., cut up choruses into sentences and, later, sentences into individual words. Mix up the sentences/words and have children reassemble them in proper order.
6. Use song to promote respect for self, others and our world/shared environment.
7. Use soothing music to decrease heart rate and set a relaxing tone in your classroom or home.
8. Transitions -- use music appropriately and intelligently to cue that you are changing activities; alter the volume and selection of music based on the intensity of the activity you are moving to.
9. Use music to strengthen learning by “touching the emotions”. Remember: music is stored in our long-term memory, so whatever we learn through music, we remember it better and believe it more deeply, especially if it touches our emotions.
10. Tie in song with some of the best in children’s literature.
11. Build the brain -- expose pre-school children to plenty of music to help thicken the neural pathway bridge (corpus collosum) between left and right hemispheres (Mozart Effect).
12. Strengthen the neural pathways by combining music and movement (Multiple Intelligences Theory).
13. Use fun, musical movement activities as a motivator, incentive, reward.
14. Use music and song to address other learning preferences/styles: visual, auditory, etc.
15. Strengthen learning by presenting information in a multisensory way -- combining visual, auditory and kinesthetic elements.
16. Songs provide a “Novel” Way of Learning -- the brain likes novelty!
17. Strengthen the brain/learning with faster-paced, musical experiences.
18. Strenthen musical intelligence by playing percussion instruments. Try a marching band and/or a “paper plate” symphony. (i.e., use quiet percussion instruments like paper plates and stir sticks or Q-tips. Have different groups of children enter the song at different points, upon your instructions.)
19. Motivate your children through music! Music is the perfect common denominator when it comes to children. Do not neglect the POWER and POTENTIAL of music!

Bonus Tip! -- Influence the birth of new brain cells through providing enriched, stimulating environments.

RONNO's goal is to help children to believe in themselves, and to nurture positive values and attitudes (self-esteem, healthy relationships) in children through his lively, motivating music. His songs about Farm Life and Community Helpers stimulate imaginations and educate in a fun-filled way. 

• Establish ground rules for your children concerning the types of sites or chat rooms that  you find acceptable. 
• There are many types of software available to block access to particular kinds of sites (or your ISP may provide blocking tools) - take advantage of them. 
• Situate the computer in a common area, such as a den or family room, where your child will be in plain sight while using the computer. 
• We teach our children about dealing with "strangers" - the same principals should be applied to strangers on the internet.  They should never give out personal information such as their phone number, address, date of birth or full name.  Explain to them that even though they may have "chatted" with someone for an extended period of time that person is still a stranger. 
• Become involved - there are many sites on the internet today that are a fun and rewarding experience to be shared.  Take the time to "surf" with your child and you may be pleasantly surprised. 

As a parent raising two children I found myself teaching and coaching them in many different activities. For my daughter, it was soccer. Mind you, I never played the game, nor did I understand the game except that it looked somewhat like hockey. But I began to play it and to coach both her and my son. Now schooled in backyard soccer I knew everything a person could know of the sport – yeah right! So I sent them off to the local soccer club to join a team in their age group. They did very well over the years and still Dad would say -- "you know you should have kicked the ball this way", or something totally brilliant to cloud the moment -- remember, I was schooled in it from my back yard. 

Ah yes! Then there was my son and high school football. Now here is something I know about. I consider myself well schooled in Sunday afternoon NFL TV football. The ultimate arm chair quarterback. This will be a snap. For four years the poor kid had to hear me yell from the sidelines -- "throw the ball, catch the ball, hit the darn guy" -- and on it went. 

Now my daughter is married and my son is 22 and has a new sport --- motocross. Again, Dad says, "I know this sport, I dabbled in ice racing and motocross as a kid myself." But now it is different. I'm no longer this 16 year old kid. At forty-something motocross is, well, not wise. So I went to the races and watched, and again would tell him how he should be turning and getting on it in the straight-aways. Always a coach and really not knowing anything, just being a Dad. 

Then at the races one day he turned to me and said, "Dad why don't you take my bike and go out there." It shut me up, but got me thinking. Thinking about racing in the over-40 class. I now have my racing bike and after 26 years of being Dad - and 4 crashes later- I came home from a hard days riding -- and of course I ride with my son -- I looked at my wife and said, "I will never, ever tell him how to do something, or it would have been easier if you did it this way, again." 

I found that the tide had turned and we had come full circle. Now the teacher is the student and this student will welcome helpful hints from the master, my son. As for my daughter, I think I'll take her word for it on child bearing. :o) 

@2000 Critter Publications - All rights reserved.