Amy's Musik Garten

Amy’s Musikgarten Family Music

Laying the Foundation for a lifetime of music enjoyment

What a joy it is to watch your child grow! In our Family Music classes we have been taking delight in the endless energy of your children, in their joy in having you there to share rocking and jumping, hugging and bouncing, being together in the wonderful environment of music. We watch them grow and can imagine them singing in the choir, playing in the band, playing Christmas tunes on the piano for the family gathering in just a few years. These are all realistic pictures, as we lay the foundation of musical skills and prepare them for the
next step.

Family Music is a time for moving – your child’s most important way of learning.

- Moving around freely, exploring movements with a scarf, joining the adults in a delightful free dance
- Moving to the beat; on your knees (with squealy delight), jumping up and down and never seeming to tire
- Moving with increasing mastery of small movements, to finger plays, with the mallets on the resonator bars, with their fingers and hands on the drums…
- Starting and stopping with increasing control, whether with their whole bodies, or with the instruments.
Moving is your child’s favorite way to learn! As one colleague says – although teachers and parents have been asking children to “sit still and listen” for centuries, they still cannot do it. Children learn to move as they move to learn, engaging body and mind simultaneously; parents and teachers are slowly
learning this.

Family Music is a time for exploring – your child’s natural way of being, when you are there to give that base of support and let him/her know that it is safe to venture away, at first for just a few steps.

- Exploring the instruments, going to pick them up out of the basket, bringing them back to you with a squeal, and finding out how many different sounds they can make.
- Exploring their voices, listening to you sing, trying out patterns – which they have mastered increasingly most often with you at home, trying out all kinds of vocal sounds, high and low, like a cow and a duck, laying the foundation for the singing voice which will increasingly emerge.  Family Music is a time for listening - laying the groundwork for the skills needed to make music.
- Listening to the beautiful sounds, witnessing the joy of adults making music together, or participating in a circle dance is an exhilarating experience!
- Listening to folk songs, children’s songs, orchestral music and songs from countries around the world is a gift for a lifetime of enjoyment. This repertoire is opening their ears…as the great pedagogue Maria Montessori would say, “Experiences in the early years open doorways for a lifetime.” When the children meet these sounds again, they are somehow familiar, and therefore worth exploring.
- Listening intently to familiar sounds, such as children laughing, farm animals mooing and crowing, household sounds of cooking and hammering is an excellent preparation to distinguish the subtleties of language sounds in written and read language. Learning to focus their listening is a vital preparation for learning, especially in the barrage of sound which fills our daily lives.

Where does this lead?

Birth- 3.5: Family Music for Toddlers

3-5 yrs: Cycle of Seasons. Your moving, exploring, listening child is ready to take off into the world of language and imagination. You will marvel as you watch him/her make up sounds, stories and movements; obtain purposeful movement to express themselves, become part of group activity, sing more patterns and eventually discover those patterns in the music they sing and hear. As your child moves into the next level of our music program you will see a confident little musician emerge through the Family Music
experience.

I look forward to working with your child in either Family Music for Toddlers or Cycles next fall!

Fall 2014
Family Music for Toddlers: Tues or Wed @ 10:00-10:40
Cycle of Seasons: Tues or Wed @ 11:00-11:50 (parent time at 11:50)
*(Cycles is taught as a drop-off class)