MusicPlay is a group music and movement class for little ones ages birth through five and their caregivers. Classes are led by a certified early childhood music education specialist and an internship team of pre-service music educators who develop activities based on the tenets of Music Learning Theory. Teachers and caregivers model music making and movement with variety and repetition, encouraging children to absorb, imitate, and express their musical ideas. Classes are grouped by age with the youngest children in our 9:00 a.m. class, our oldest in the 11:00 a.m. class, and our 10:00 a.m. class including a mix of ages- a great option for siblings.

All of our MusicPlay classes are centered around the following core values:

We are safe and kind.
We acknowledge that all children are born with musical potential.
We value learning through play.
We limit talking and focus on breathing, moving, and musicking.
We embrace purposeful silences and silent audiation time as powerful cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and music learning tools.
We prepare the music and movement environment for informal guidance. We resist musicking expectations, judgements, and assessments best reserved for use during formal instruction, formal music performances, or other types of formal music achievement.

Our MusicPlay curriculum is updated and customized every semester to best meet the needs of each group of children, so families who return year after year can continue to grow through the program and “graduate” from one age group to another.

You can email our MusicPlay specialist, Julia Zanella, at jframeli@bw.edu any time about the MusicPlay curriculum or early childhood music development.

To learn more about Music Learning Theory, visit giml.org/mlt/about and giml.org/mlt/earlychildhood.