by Miss Emma, TipToe Music Teacher
Hello Everybody! Miss Emma here!
I wanted to share a little bit about my own experience with music and movement growing up and why it matters for your little ones now. Especially important for me this week as we celebrate International Dance Day on April 29th - a day that reminds us just how powerful movement can be in bringing people together.
Our bodies are hardwired to move.
From the womb, where we kick, push, and turn, to the incredible milestones of crawling, walking, and running… we don’t need to be taught that we are meant to move. We just do. And music? It’s there from the very beginning too. We’re moving to rhythm long before we even realize it - the steady beat of a heartbeat, the whooshing patterns of everything happening around us. So it’s really no surprise that when music starts playing, our instinct is to move along with it.
For me, that was always just part of life. With a mom who is a retired ballerina and a dad who performed in musical theatre, I was surrounded by music and movement from the start. By the age of four, my favourite place in the world was the ballet studio - listening to the pianist and learning how to move my body with the music. As I grew, that movement became more expressive. I learned how to match what I was hearing - soft, quick, floating, strong - with what my body was doing. But something else was happening too. I wasn’t just learning how to move… I was learning how to move with others.
My teacher told us growing up, "Your body is your instrument. It is how you express and convey emotion and tell the story. You must use your whole body to do that." That has stuck with me, and is why I am so adamant about using my whole body when I'm teaching.
In my ballet class, my peers and I had to watch each other, adjust, and work together so we could tell a story as a group. Sometimes that meant waiting. Sometimes it meant following. Sometimes it meant trusting that everyone would come in at the right moment. And when it worked? It felt incredible. There’s something really special about moving as part of a group and feeding off each other’s energy, finding a shared rhythm, and feeling like you’re part of something bigger than yourself.
That’s the piece I think about all the time in our classes at TipToe Music. There’s actually research behind this too, children don’t just move on their own, they learn by watching and joining in. In fact, even very young children will copy the movements of the people around them when music is playing, which is exactly what we see in class every week.
“Children are also affected by those they observe… from as young as 18 months, children copy movements they see modeled by teachers and caregivers when listening or performing music.” - Sound Healing Research Foundation
When your children are bouncing in a circle, passing instruments, or starting and stopping together… they’re not just “being busy.” They’re learning how to connect.They’re figuring out how to take turns, notice others, move together and be part of a group. And they’re doing it in a way that feels natural and fun, not forced.
I still find it amazing that my body remembers choreography from over 20 years ago. If the music comes on, it’s like no time has passed at all. And there’s actually a reason for that - movement memory is incredibly long-lasting. Our bodies hold onto those patterns in a way that’s different from other types of memory. That connection between music and movement really does run deep, and even more than that - it connects us to each other.
“Movement skills, also known as motor memories, seem to be more persistent than other kinds of memory” - Stanford Medicine News Center
So as we mark International Dance Day this week, I hope you take a moment to move - whether that’s in a class, in your kitchen, or right in the middle of your living room! Because when you’re dancing with your child, you’re not just having fun. You’re helping them learn how to be with others. And frankly I think you should dance like a toddler - as if no one is watching!
Sing (and dance) with you soon! Miss Emma
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You will find Emma singing and dancing in our classes each week in Oakville and Waterdown this Spring
