Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have some questions about Kindermusik’s new ‘Digital Home Materials’ (DHMs)?  Hopefully the information below will help to answer them for you.  If not, please don’t hesitate to contact me for further information.

What are Digital Home Materials?
A vital part of your Kindermusik experience (and part of your enrolment fees) is the ‘Home Materials’.  For years, Kindermusik has been providing high-quality, valuable, well-loved Physical Home Materials which included CDs (containing all of the music learnt in class), Storybooks, and a Home Activity Guide (containing helpful activity suggestions to continue and extend the learning and fun at home; information about basic musical concepts; background information about the songs; sheet music and lyrics for songs learnt in class; and most importantly, information about your child’s age and developmental stage).

In keeping with the times, Kindermusik International has now created NEW, easy-to-use, Digital Home Materials, to extend the magic and learning of a Kindermusik class into your own home throughout the week.  ‘Kindermusik@Home’ delivers your favourite Kindermusik songs and activities, instrumental music, books, and lyrics, as well as recipes, learning games, crafts, and more in a ‘green-friendly’ digital format.  With each new monthly unit, families receive a treasure trove of developmentally appropriate activities that will give children a lifelong love of music and a strong early foundation for learning. And with each activity, parents learn HOW and WHY that activity enhances a child’s learning and development.  ‘Kindermusik@Home’ is available through tablet, mobile, and PC devices – ready to use wherever your family wanders!  It’s Kindermusik for you!  Read the article – ‘Digital Learning In The Early Childhood Classroom (And At Home!)’.

Kindermusik@Home (iPad screenshot)

Kindermusik@Home (Mobile screenshot)

What will the Digital Home Materials include?
Each set of Digital Home Materials contains an abundance of age-appropriate materials and activities – all tied to the class content. They are built specifically to make it fun and easy for a parent to connect class-time to home-time, and to enrich both experiences. They include:

• Music downloads – All of the songs, rhymes, stories and sounds from class are easy to download and add to your music collection.
• Every unit’s Literature Book is included in e-book format, with pages you can turn yourself, and a page-by-page audio read-aloud that you can turn on or off. The ebook can be downloaded and printed if you prefer!
• Activity Buttons take you to a variety of different activity types, including dance and movement instructions, fingerplay demonstrations and instructions, together-in-the-kitchen activities, music time, listening games, vocal play activities, video field trips, find-it/count-it style activities, ideas for pretend play, and MORE!
• The Why It’s Good for Your Child area fills automatically with information about why any specific activity or activity type is useful, important, or developmentally significant. Addressing the parent directly with up-to-date, research-supported, clear and friendly information, there’s a “why it’s good” feature for every single activity.
• In addition to the music downloads and e-book, the Download Center also includes Printable Activity Pages and, for the first time, Printable Lyrics Pages for all of the songs in the unit.

How do I find or access my Digital Home Materials?
From your tablet, mobile, and PC devices, visit my.kindermusik.com.  Enter your email address and log in as a ‘new user’ to set your password. If you have already registered with play.kindermusik.com, you can use the same email address and password in both places.  Once you’ve setup your account, you’ll be directed to your home page where you’ll find your child’s unit of materials waiting for you.  Just click the unit icon to start exploring!

TWO new units will be delivered to your account each term.  These units will remain in your account FOREVER growing your library of music, activities, books, and information about your child’s development!

I’m having trouble accessing my materials.  HELP!
If you experience any difficulty logging in or accessing your current unit, please contact me immediately.  I am working directly with our friends at Kindermusik International to make sure that you have a hassle-free experience.  We appreciate knowing about any trouble that you encounter ASAP, so that we can troubleshoot and rectify the situation quickly for your convenience.

How do I get the music for the class?
The music for your child’s class is available in the orange-coloured ‘Download Center’ on the unit homepage for your child’s curriculum.  Simply click to download the music to your computer and then burn it to a CD, import to iTunes, or save it and listen in – whichever way your prefer to organise your music!

Our family has rules about ‘screen time’.  How can we use these materials?
Like most parents, Kindermusik International is forever conscious of keeping the amount of screen time to a minimum.  At the same time, they are constantly encouraged by parents to make their content available on tablets, mobiles, and PCs, and to develop content not only for parents, but for children to interact with directly.  In creating this digital resource, Kindermusik International has read about and researched this topic thoroughly, and have aligned their stance with that of the highly respected NAEYC and the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning, recognising that children can benefit from a responsible and age-appropriate use of technology in combination with hands-on experiences and in partnership with an actively involved parent/caregiver.

Statement from Kindermusik International – “We are proud to bring these HIGH-QUALITY materials to your family, which truly embody the very best of both worlds – a responsible introduction to technology AND lots of hands-on, movement-rich, in-your-lap, or down-on-the-floor learning. We do our absolute best to balance these forces, providing as much robust and variable content as we can, and giving parents the option of delivering that content to their children in whatever way/s they choose.  All units naturally contain only a small percentage of content that occurs primarily on the screen (this percentage rises slightly as the age level climbs).  In most cases, we have provided an off-screen alternative for those activities.  For example: while a video field trip (typically less than 2 minutes long) can’t be experienced by a child whose parents limit screen exposure altogether, an online matching game, find-it page, fingerplay, recipe, craft, game, dance, or pretend play activity would be equally viable and enjoyable by a parent/child together at the computer or by a parent/child together away from the computer.  We are truly respectful of all parents’ choices about screen time, and respect that each family knows and gets to decide what’s best for their family when it comes to this issue!  We hope to be providing materials that are robust and flexible enough to delight our diversity of Kindermusik families.”

These materials are designed for you and your child to use co-operatively, engaging with one another as you read, watch, discuss, explore and discover.  The book can be used as an e-book, or can be printed from the ‘Download Center’ and enjoyed traditionally (just like the Physical ‘At Home’ Materials that you may be previously used to).  Activities can be printed from the ‘Download Center’ and enjoyed over and over again!  Parents can read, watch, and learn about the latest research in Early Childhood Education and their child’s development.  They are truly a rich and exciting tool that’s now available to you ANYTIME and ANYWHERE!

Why am I now paying LESS for MORE Home Materials?
One of the benefits of going digital is that we’re now able to offer families overall COST SAVINGS on the Kindermusik experience (WITHOUT AFFECTING THE QUALITY of the program)!  You’ll now be receiving MORE music, MORE literature, and MORE activity ideas, that are easily accessible for the whole family to enjoy.  The new digital delivery also allows us to save on expensive shipping and handling costs (which are sadly on the increase, along with everything else!). That translates to a significant saving for you, and a greener, more eco-friendly practice for the globe, supporting Kindermusik International’s mission to be a ‘sustainable company’.  Plus, there are no more up-front materials charges. Just one LOW monthly payment that bundles your tuition cost and Digital Home Materials into one.

Testimonials about the NEW ‘Digital Home Materials’:

Going to a restaurant with kids made easy!  One mum shares her secret for making dinner out a “Kindermusik kind of night” using ‘Kindermusik@Home’:

“Wow wow wow!!!!  Just stumbled upon the mobile site for my.kindermusik.com and it is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!  Music right from my iPhone!  Gorgeous eBook right from the site without having to download any of it from my desktop!  Woohoo!  Dinner out tonight with my kids is going to be a Kindermusik kind of night, good thing we have two phones!  THANK YOU!!!!!” (Amy Kirk, CA)