Locations that offer this class:

• Redmond

Kindermusik for the Young Child

Kindergarten, Year 1
First Grade, Year 2
60 minute, weekly classes
Tuition and Materials: $87 per month

What your child will experience in Kindermusik Young Child class:

• Singing and vocal development. Through games, and interactive musical play, your child will develop the confidence needed to sing. Sometimes it sounds like a foreign language when your child sings “ta” and “ti-ti,” he’s using the language of professional musicians and composers and getting ready to read and write simple rhythm patterns.
• Movement. Your child will dance expressively to music, giving the practice needed to coordinate body movements to the sound of music. This kind of musical play not only improves musicianship, but physical coordination as well.
• Focused listening. Using Kindermusik’s music collection, we’ll help your little musician identify a range of orchestra instruments and their sound qualities, while also gaining an early awareness and knowledge of composers and masterworks in Western arts tradition.
• Reading and writing. She’ll learn melodic notation and identify pitches such as the C, A, and D notes on the treble clef, plus rhythmic notation, and eventually she’ll compose her own music.
• Exploring and playing musical instruments. Authentic percussion, string, pre-keyboard, and woodwind instruments from around the world expose your child to the many choices for future musical study, and at the same time provide your opportunity to musically succeed before taking on more formal instruction.
• Music theory and appreciation. In addition to learning to read and write music, your child will learn musical terminology, time signatures, and rhythms. Your child will listen to and identify orchestral and indigenous instruments from all over the world. Composers and a wide variety of musical genres will be introduced as well.

Kindergarten (Year One)

This is the year that musical seeds begin to sprout! Your child will be introduced to numerous musical concepts including rhythmic notation, reading music, understanding the staff, and how it relates to all the songs we’ve been singing for years. Through the use of an accurately pitched glockenspiel specially made for Kindermusik, we will begin to connect note names with actual pitches, both sung and played, and specific note placement on the staff, achieving a full pentatonic scale by the end of the year.Throughout the year we will introduce your budding young musician to other musical prodigies from history, learn songs and games from around the world, match pitch with our voices and meet all the instruments in a traditional orchestra. We will do all of this while dancing and singing, playing games, telling stories playing with instruments.

First Grade (Year Two)

This year continues to build on the musical foundation established in Year One. Our musical adventure takes us out of the traditional concert hall and into the folk history of several different cultures, starting here in America. We will play a two-stringed folk dulcimer in the fall, as well as continuing our work with the glockenspiel.In the spring we will begin to learn the recorder as we travel out of the U.S. and into the broader world in our search for good folk music in many different cultures. Story telling, both with words and with music will be a primary teaching tool for the year, as well as dancing and singing and percussive instrument play. We will add new notes to our pentatonic scale from year one, building up to more than a full octave of notes recognized and named. The concepts of accidentals, dotted rhythms and syncopation and musical forms such as rondo will also be explored.

With the At Home Materials, the learning continues with your child’s best teacher – you!

A CD full of the songs from class for dancing, musical games, and musical accompaniment for instrument play. An accurately pitched glockenspiel, rhythm sticks, two-stringed dulcimer or a recorder for making music as a family. A Family song Book containing the songs from the CD and in class. Weekly, interactive take home cards to continue the musical learning together at home. A canvas carry bag, games bag and folder for carrying and storing it all.