The First Steps in Music curriculum is designed to build a?child’s musical potential by exercising their natural?Tuneful, Beatful, and Artful abilities. First Steps in Music?for Infants and Toddlers provides developmentally appropriate lessons that are well suited for children under three years old with their caregivers. First Steps in Music for Preschool and Beyond provides lessons for children as young as three, but is appropriate for any aged child that needs to further develop their ability to think tunes, move with the beat and respond to the expressive qualities music. Traditional folk songs, rhymes and classical music are the primary source materials used to develop their musical minds. Created by Dr. John Feierabend, from his decades of research, this pedagogical approach is contained in two books and 7 CD’s, packed with repertoire, activities and directions, performance indicators, assessment tracking and three years worth of example lesson plans for infants/toddlers and preschool through elementary. Significant class time will be spent on learning the techniques and activities necessary to get started while exploring the rich repertoire of Bounces and Wiggles, Pitch Exploration, Fragment Songs, Simple Songs, SongTales, Creative Movement for Form and Expression, Circle Games, Action Songs, Beat Motion activities and more. Participants who successfully complete this course will receive an official certificate of completion from the Feierabend Association for Music Education (FAME).
By the end of the course participants will:
- Gain an overview of the Feierabend Philosophy of teaching with a 30 yr plan for students.
- Be able to describe a musical person and explain why learning by ear first it crucial to language development.
- Be able to describe quality literature and red flags indicators during identification.
- Understand the idea of revealing increasing subtleties
- Be able to describe childhood musical development.
- Be able to identify early childhood listening preferences.
- Gain an understanding of how Musical Aptitude has critical periods of brain development
- Have learned techniques and repertoire in the Infant/Toddler curriculum.
- Have explored considerations of implementation for newborns, babies and toddlers:
- Have learned strategies for delivery
- Be able to plan for infants and toddlers.
- Be able to sequence literature and activities for lasting musical growth
- Gain overview of basic framework of the Preschool and Beyond curriculum:
- Have explored techniques and repertoire necessary to implement each of the eight sections of the curriculum.
- Learned lesson planning and Assessment templates.
- Be able to identify strategies and considerations for implementing curriculum to build musical communities.