Blue Frog School of Music
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Toddlers Music Program

Why Music Matters

"Music is capable of evoking, suggesting and implying limitless numbers of emotional reactions in the child which then play upon the mind and the imagination of the child. It has the power to reach the hearts, minds and spirits of children and in so doing provides intense joy and satisfaction to the listener."
Richard Gill - Composer and Music educator

"Music expands memory and assists in developing crucial language skills. Music exerts a multiplier effect on reasoning skills, especially on spatial reasoning. Music also reinforces such logical and perceptual ideas as beginning and ending, cause and effect, sequence and balance, harmony and dissonance, as well as arithmetic concepts such as number, enumeration, and timing. Music is also a powerful tool for communicating the full spectrum of human emotion."
Bruce O. Boston

 

As young children grow and develop, music is a basic medium not only of communication, but also of self-expression. Through music, children expand their cognitive universe as they first experience, and later learn to produce, sounds organized to carry musical meaning within their culture.

Music improves brain health and function in many ways. It makes you smarter, happier, and more productive at any age. Listening is good, making music is better.

Sources: The value of music education - TEDxSydney - Richard Gill.

Why making music matters by Dennie Wolf, WolfBrown.

Start the music: A report from the Early childhood summit by by Bruce O. Boston

Why with P&D?

"Teachers who love teaching, teach students to love learning"
- Anonymous

Simply put, (P&D stands for Pilar and Diego), they a couple of impassioned, creative and committed educators joined by music since 2004. They are passionate about sharing the infinite benefits that music brings to children and adults alike. Creative while designing and delivering musical experiences to nurture the musicality in our children and forever committed to every single participant in their sessions.

Both Pilar Plazas and Diego RincĂłn earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Jazz Music institute in Brisbane, Australia and the Postgraduate University course, Advanced Studies in Music and Dance Education Orff-Schulwerk from the Orff Institute in Salzburg, Austria. They have also attended numerous workshops in music education and are in constant search of professional development.

Why with Blue Frog?

What better place for our families to explore, create and learn together, than Blue Frog School of Music. With a long history and an impeccable reputation in music education, Blue Frog offers a wide range of music lessons and programs for all ages and skill levels.

P&D and Blue Frog welcome you and your child to join us in the amazing music journey we are about to embark on!

How P&D Deliver

As music educators, we look forward to working with you and your children—building a community where we all feel safe and inspired to explore, to imagine and to create. We invite you to feel the joy of growing together through musical experiences where the learning is active and achieved by the most effective pathway. Play!

Through joyful activities, including: circle games, creative movement, singing, finger playing, lap games, and instrument playing we will stimulate and strengthen all areas of their development.

The same activities will allow children to be exposed to different music elements. Dancing to a piece, voice exploration, playing an instrument while keeping a beat, creating a new pattern or movement sequence and sharing their ideas with the group are activities that not only create a path for experiencing music or develop a skill, but that nurture their well-being and the relationship between themselves, their parents, and their peers.

Based on the Orff-Schulwerk approach (Music, Movement and Speech) and the knowledge that we constantly acquired while working with the young child, our sessions are designed according to the skills and needs of the participants enrolled.

Our families will meet once per week during six weeks. The sessions will run on Friday mornings and are specially designed for two different group ages:

1. Music for little ones - 6 to 18 months ( 30min) - 9am
2. Happy Toddlers - 18 months to 3 years (45 min) - 10am

Areas of Development

1. Social and Emotional: Interacting with others, helping themselves and self-control.

2. Physical: Includes gross motor skills which involve larger muscles like arms and legs. Fine motor skills which involve the smaller muscles in the fingers, toes, eyes and other areas.

3 . Cognitive and Intellectual: Child's ability to learn and solve problems. Memory and concentration skills.

4. Language and Speech: Child's ability to understand the spoken word and express verbally.

5. Sensory Processing: The brain's ability to receive, interpret, and effectively use information provided by all the senses: vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch, and the detection of movement (vestibular and proprioceptive systems).

Music Elements

1. Beat: Pulse
2. Rhythm: The sequence and patterns that include sound and silence
3. Tempo: Fast/slow
4. Pitch: High/low sounds
5. Dynamics: Loud/soft/getting louder/ getting softer
6. Timber: The quality of sound
7. Form: The structure of a piece

Objectives

1. To make music together
2. To promote tuneful singing
3. To play and feel a steady beat
4. To respond to fast/slow, loud/ soft, short/long, high/low
5. To strengthen listening, cognitive and fine/motor skills
6. To stimulate creative movement and dance
7. To explore different ways of expression
8. To be exposed to music from different cultures and styles

Achieving Objectives

Understanding that everyone learns at a different pace, the musical purpose of these sessions is to bring our participants as close as possible to achieve all of our objectives.

In spite of that, our main goal is not to master a technicality but instead to make sure every participant feels delighted and plentiful during the process. "What matters is the journey not the destination."

Six sessions is just a small block that is part of an ongoing process. This journey can get started as young as a few months old and can go until the child is ready for further music development on an instrument (usually 5 or 6 years of age). By this time the musical, intellectual, physical and emotional elements will naturally come from within to the instrument and not the other way around.

The capacity of understanding the complexity of music plus the concentration, discipline and satisfaction that it implies, is an invaluable asset towards any future professional development.

More Information

1. Creativity begins in the cradle

2. Music is the Key

3. The seven senses

4. Music with 0-4

 

Music for tots

Tuition

$145 for 6 weeks.
Sept. 20 - Oct 25
Nov. 1 - Dec. 13

Class size: min. 5 - max. 8

Register Here

Dear Parents

As a parent you are expected to sing, dance, play and explore along with your children. Many parents feel they are not equipped with the necessary skills to interact with their child through music. However, as said by Julie Wylie, "a simple song sung unprofessionally but lovingly to a child sitting on a parent's knee reaches more deeply into the child's consciousness than the voice of a singer on a cassette or CD."

Our sessions are also dedicated to you (parent/caregiver). Through them, you will enhance your own musical abilities, gain tools and learn games that will support your child during the process. You are the most important person in your child's life and it is through you that the learning starts.