Class Descriptions
Baby / Toddler Family Music
These weekly classes are action-filled for babies/toddlers—full of energy, often on the move, always exploring and learning—and their adults. Together you’ll sing, chant, move, dance, listen, and play simple instruments, all activities that bridge the natural connection between music and movement.
Each lesson features movement activities for coordination, body awareness and control, exploration of space, and instruments such as rhythm sticks, jingles, rattles, drums, and resonator bars.
Additionally, you’ll receive a wonderful CD with digital code and a parent activity book. You also have the option of an instrument set that includes sticks, jingles, finger cymbals and scarves to use at home for more fun time together.
Cycle of Seasons
An adult (parent or caregiver) must accompany the child during the 45-minute class. This class is designed to bring the joy of music and movement to the child AND you, the adult! The physical presence and participation of an adult is necessary for the child's success / enjoyment of these learning experiences.
Home materials include a full color parent/child book, CD with digital link, and a small instrument or apparatus.
All babies are born with an aptitude for music. But research shows that their aptitude diminishes if it is not nurtured. The best way to nurture a child's music aptitude is through active music making and play with their adult!
This class offers you the opportunity to play with your child in a musical setting, experiencing music and movement games designed to delight the child and awaken their curiosity about music.
You are creating an environment in which your child's music aptitude is nurtured and skills are developed through activities which include singing, bouncing songs, rocking songs, dances, finger plays, body awareness games and echoles. You are laying the foundation for beat awareness, vocal production, and aural discrimination (singing in tune!).
Pre-Piano I
The physical presence and participation of the adult (parent or caregiver) is necessary class for the chiild's success / enjoyment of these classes. The child needs the physical presence, human touch and companionship of an attentive, engaged adult companion.
The teacher will supply the information, the visuals and ideas and the physical modeling...the companion adult will then, in person, model absorbing the information, implement the visuals / ideas and mimicking / partnering the physical actions.
In The Music Garden, our Pre-piano I classes for 4.5 to 6 yr olds will have activities presented in a developmentally sound, playful manner. The focus is on learning through process rather than performance. The children love exploring music and instruments through their natural interest in the world around them.
Throughout the year, we will be doing a wide variety of hands-on activities, designed to build a strong musical foundation through:
Drumming and percussion instrument play
Developing the singing voice
Movement, both creative and structured
Building the necessary listening skills to lead to long-term success in instrumental study / learning
Beginning the process of learning about orchestral instruments
First steps in reading music
The stories, songs and sounds from the world of nature in four environments:
My Home Place, Woodlands, Cattail Marsh, and Meadow
Home materials include 4 CDs and digital download codes, posters/folders, instrument pages and notation game cards,1/2 inch 3ring binder and a zipper pouch.
Pre-Piano II: Music Makers: Around the World
This class includes singing, creative as well as structured movement, playing instruments and ensemble work, ear training and guided listening. This developmentally sound approach to music literacy builds symbolic thinking, concentration, memory, and self expression. The children start to work with written musical patterns, too.
In Pre-piano II, your child will explore the music of the British Isles, Germany, and our own Amerindian and African-American music hertiage. She/he will learn songs, dances, stories, rituals, and customs of these cultures to help him/her feel and understand others around the world.
At the end of this year, your child will have a comprehensive music foundation which is an excellent preparation for the next step, our Piano program!
Piano I - IV
The physical presence of an attentive/engaged adult (parent or caregiver) at these classes is required for the child's success / enjoyment of these experiences. The child NEEDS the physical presence, human touch and companionship of an attentive, engaged adult.
The teacher will supply the information, the visuals and ideas and the physical modeling....the companion adult will then, in person, model absorbing the information, implement the visuals / ideas and mimicking / partnering the physical actions.
The patterns ("sol-mi-do" and "du, du-de") up to this point at The Music Garden, have been aural/oral and notation based, using the ear and the eyes. In Piano I, reviewing and singing and reading/writing those basic patterns will be combined with the physical black and white keyboard adding the neuromuscular system of the fingers / hand!
Upon completing this piano program, a graduate of The Music Garden will be a musically literate pianist, able to sight read, sight sing, improvise, and compose in all Major and minor keys!
Each student will receive a Music Maker at the Keyboard Piano 1 book, two CDS and digital links, as well as sets of melody and rhythm pattern notation cards and song title cards.
In addition, your student will receive a 1/2 inch 3-ring binder for assignment sheets and a pouch with 3 holes to attach in binder, to collect and organize the notation and song title cards.