I worked for 15 years as a music teacher at three different schools. I loved my job and learned a lot of things during the hundreds of classes I taught and the numerous Christmas Programs and Graduation Ceremonies I coordinated the music for.
One big thing I learned is that it’s very hard to find good songs to teach young children. Many products appear to be for little kids but when you start listening to the music, it’s way over their heads with far too many words and sometimes concepts that they really just aren’t ready for.
During the years I taught, I researched heavily to learn what children should be able to do at various stages of their development. I also looked constantly for engaging songs they would enjoy and be able to sing.
I found from experience that the songs they liked the best were the ones with motions. Early on, I tried to add motions to virtually every song I introduced to them.
I saw amazing things happen in the classroom. Kids that weren’t interested in music started getting involved. The attention span essentially doubled as I started out teaching 20 minute sessions and before long was able to give them 40 minutes without losing them. It never failed that they wanted more when our time was up.
I had a degree in TV and Film Production, so after a short time I started creating teaching tools for other teachers to use. I began producing music tracks that turned into CDs. Then we added video to make DVDs of the songs that worked the best.
My goal with this blog is to share some of my teaching techniques for the individual songs we recorded so that other people can benefit from some of the things that took years for me to develop.
I hope in time, that the blog will be a large body of work that is a huge resource for parents, grandparents, relatives, friends, teachers, and anybody out there who loves teaching music to little children.
I have lots of testimonials from all kinds of different people who have been kind enough to let me know what Praise in Motion has done for the children they shared it with. You might enjoy having a look at some of the things people have written to me. Click on the link below to have a look:
http://praiseinmotion.net/TESTIMONIALS.html