I attended a conference where the famous music educator Dr. John Feierabend spoke. He explained how there is a burst of neurofiber growth from birth to age 3. At age 2 children have 50% more neurofibers in their brains than adults, then the brain "cleans house" and only keeps the stronger neurofibers. If children do not utilize their musical neurofibers they will be weakened and possibly eliminated. By the time a student comes to music in kindergarten a lot of those neurofibers are already determined weaker or stronger due to musical activity at home. This can affect things such as a student being able to sing in tune and keep a steady beat. There is a small window for me to strengthen those weakened neurofibers, but there are many ways to keep them strong from the beginning at home! :-)
An easy way is to sing to your baby! It doesn't matter if you think you "can sing" or not (which all of us are singers! If you can talk, you can sing.) Your baby will benefit from any singing!
Feierabend has a bunch of wonderful books to incorporate music and beat with infants & toddlers. Here is a special FREE 'sneak peak' I found of some examples from his books. If interested in more, you can buy his books on amazon!
http://www.giamusic.com/pdf/Z151-2013.pdf
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