Kindermusik with Tabby

New Village Class and Imagine That!

by tabbyfoo on Sep 18, 2009 (0) Comments

Please make sure you’re on our mailing list so you don’t miss any important announcements. http://eepurl.com/bKkO – Subscribe now!.

Village 10:30 Thursday class is FULL. I have opened another section of this class immediately following it at 11:30, and I have a class scheduled at Hope Church on Wednesdays at 9:30 with one child enrolled. I need 3 to begin a class, and prefer 4. If you’d like to sign up, but are concerned about the cost, you can pay half the materials fee now and half in November*, and pay monthly for your tuition, with no contract. You can sign up by visiting KMTabby.com and registering online. If you have any questions, please email me! kindermusik at harmonymusicstudio.com comes to me on my phone, so I usually respond within a matter of just a few hours, if not sooner.

I am also looking for 3-5 year olds for an Imagine That class. The currently scheduled class has one child on the list to start, but she is flexible for scheduling if the current time doesn’t work for you. It’s tentatively scheduled for Tuesdays at 11:30. I can schedule it another day (Wednesday or Thursday) at another morning to midday time. Please let me know if you’re interested in this class.

Scholarships are available for students demonstrating need. Discuss your options with me if the cost of Kindermusik is not in your budget right now. My goal is to reach as many children as possible with this wonderful program, so please don’t hesitate to approach me if you want to come but need help.

Why Teach Music?

by tabbyfoo on Sep 16, 2009 (0) Comments

Why do we teach music? – Thursday, July 9, 2009

Ms. Tabby and Corwyn share a musical High-5 in Kindermusik class

This wonderful list has been published all over the internet, and today I found it linked from twitter on the Kindermusik International blog. It’s definitely one of those things that bears repeating, especially as I prepare to go do a brief cameo at a summer camp program for special needs kids up in Pasadena. Music moves us all, and I am moved to share it with you through lessons, Kindermusik classes, and being part of the musically involved population in our community.

Why Do We Teach Music?

Not because we expect you to major in music.
Not only because we expect you to play or sing all your life.
Not only so you can relax.
Not just so you can have fun.

But…
so you will be more human.
so you will recognize beauty.
so you will be sensitive.
so you will be closer to an infinite beyond this world.
so you will have something to cling to.
so you will have more compassion,
more gentleness, more good–in short, more life.

Of what value will it be to make a prosperous living unless you know how to live?

Ruth D. Anderson Kindermusik Children’s Fund – provides materials scholarships for students who demonstrate need.

by tabbyfoo on Sep 02, 2009 (0) Comments

The Ruth D. Anderson
Kindermusik^® Children’s Fund

The Ruth D. Anderson Kindermusik Children’s Fund provides At Home Materials to children who are physically or emotionally challenged, who are financially or educationally disadvantaged, who have physical disabilities, or who have lost a parent. Applications for scholarships are accepted online once each year, from May 15 through June 15.

ELIGIBILITY

Licensed Kindermusik educators who have been teaching Kindermusik for a minimum of one year are eligible to apply on behalf of children with special needs. Scholarships are available in these forms:

1. Scholarship for Kindermusik At Home Materials. As an existing Kindermusik educator, you could be granted an annual scholarship (fall and spring semesters) by which you would receive a Kindermusik account credit for your purchase of At Home Materials (account credit to be used for the purchase of At Home Materials for the children for whom you apply). This account credit would be equal to a set amount per child (up to a maximum of 12 children per semester). Scholarships for At Home Materials are available to Kindermusik educators around the world.

At Home Materials scholarship amounts granted are preset as follows:

Village

Our Time $100 year ($50 for fall, $50 for spring)

Imagine That! $120 per year ($60 for fall, $60 for spring)

Young Child $150 per year ($75 for fall, $75 for spring)

Family Time $130 per year ($65 for fall, $65 for spring)

FUND GUIDELINES

A maximum of 12 children, or one class, will be granted to each individual educator. This may be materials for individual children or an entire class.
The fund is available to cover the cost of Kindermusik At Home Materials for each child.
For all requests granted, each child’s name or initials and birth date must be submitted prior to the disbursement of materials, preferably with the application.
At Home Materials scholarships are available for the spring/fall studio curricula only, including Village, Our Time, Imagine That!, Young Child, and Family Time. Scholarships are not available for Kindermusik camp programs or Sign and Sing. Further details about ABC Music & Me scholarships are outlined below.
Applications for grants under this program must be submitted each year for which the grant is requested. Each grant/application will encompass one year, two consecutive 15-week semesters, or four 8-week semesters for Village.
Funding does not cover the cost of teacher’s materials or instruments.

Priority will be given to:

Children and families with the most compelling needs
First-time applicants who have taught Kindermusik for at least one year

At Home Materials scholarship amounts granted are preset as follows:

Village

Our Time $100 year ($50 for fall, $50 for spring)

Imagine That! $120 per year ($60 for fall, $60 for spring)

Young Child $150 per year ($75 for fall, $75 for spring)

Family Time $130 per year ($65 for fall, $65 for spring)

The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, a non-profit permanent fund, is the vehicle by which donors contribute to and support the Ruth D. Anderson Kindermusik Children’s Fund.

FUNDING

The Ruth D. Anderson Children’s Fund is able to provide scholarships through contributions from Kindermusik International, Kindermusik educators, and proceeds from the sale of Love everyday, a book of stories from Kindermusik educators about the joy of bringing music into the lives of children and families.

If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to the Children’s Fund, send a check payable to “Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro” to the following address:

To be sure that your check goes toward the Children’s Fund, please send an accompanying letter, or state on the “memo” section of your check, “Ruth D. Anderson Kindermusik Children’s Fund.”

Love everyday is available for purchase in the Kindermusik Store and it makes a wonderful gift or coffee table book for parents in your waiting room.

Purchase Love everyday now.

Music and the Arts play an important role in Child Development

by tabbyfoo on Aug 24, 2009 (0) Comments

Research Encourages Focus on Music and the Arts to Enhance Early Childhood Development

Music Research

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, states, “Studying music encourages self discipline and diligence traits that carry over into mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history and geography.” Research supports that music helps prepare the mind for specific disciplines of learning; skills learned through music carry over into study skills, communications skills, cognitive skills and abstract reasoning skills useful to all parts of life, according to a 1997 article in Neurological Research.

Young Children

Don Campbell, author of The Mozart Effect, traced neurological development during childhood and found prior to a major spurt of neural integration in the brain during the elementary school years, learning occurs through movement and quick emotional associations. For example, by age two, the brain has begun to fuse with the body via marching, dancing, and developing a sense of physical rhythm. The more music children are exposed to before they enter school, the more deeply this stage of neural coding will assist them throughout their lives.

Parental Involvement

Findings from a study conducted by three researchers at Sam Houston State University in Texas reports that early music training can improve intelligence, and the amount of parental involvement in the music training can greatly affect the amount of improvement. Strong correlations were found between musical abilities in young children, particularly the ability to match vocal pitches and reproduce rhythmic patterns and abstract reasoning abilities.

The study also showed that parental time spent with a child is a more important factor in predicting intelligence test success than such factors as single-parent households, poverty, low parental education levels and ethnic minority status.

School-aged Children

Arts education makes a tremendous impact on the developmental growth of every child and has proven to help level the “learning field” across socio-economic boundaries, states the involvement in the Arts and Success in Secondary School, James S. Catterall, The UCLA Imagination Project, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, UCLA, Americans for the Arts Monograph, January 1998.

Arts education has a measurable impact on youth at risk in deterring delinquent behavior and truancy problems while also increasing overall academic performance among those youth engaged in after school and summer arts programs targeted toward delinquency prevention, according to the YouthARTS Development Project, 1996, U.S. Department of Justice, National Endowment for the Arts, and Americans for the Arts.

Community-based Arts

Findings from the Living the Arts Through Language + Learning: A Report on community-Based Youth Organizations, Shirley Brice Heath, Stanford University and Carnegie FoundationFor the Advancement of Teaching, Americans for the Arts Monograph, November 1998 reports that:

Young people who participate in the arts for at least three hours a day, three days
a week for at least one year are:

4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement.
3 times more likely to be elected to class office within their schools.
4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair.
3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance.
4 times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem.

Young artists, as compared with their peers, are likely to:

Read for pleasure nearly twice as often.
Perform community service more than four times as often.
Participate in youth groups nearly four times as frequently.
Attend music, art and dance classes nearly three times as frequently.

Consider bringing music into your child’s life by taking lessons or classes with us at Harmony Music Studio – where the gift of music lasts a lifetime! 281-992-9800
Originally posted on Kindermusik.com

Kindermusik or Private Lessons?

by tabbyfoo on Aug 24, 2009 (0) Comments

Should I choose Kindermusik or Private Lessons?

Q: My kindergartener or 1^st grader shows interest in learning music. Should I enroll her in private lessons? Or Kindermusik?

As her parents, only you can make that decision, but here is some information that may help you to make the right choice for your child.

Q: What is Kindermusik for the Young Child?

Kindermusik for the Young Child is the culmination of early childhood musical development; in addition to movement, instrumental play, singing, and creating, YC students begin to learn musical notation (note and rhythmic), and begin learning to play a melody instrument, the glockenspiel. We also learn pre-keyboarding skills to transfer the knowledge of the glockenspiel to the piano. YC was designed for Kindergarten and First Grade students. Please be aware that Young Child is a sequential, two year curriculum – new students may join in second (Spring) semester as class space allows, with the understanding that the family and child will work with the teacher to catch up on concepts and learning covered in the first (Fall) semester.

Children in YC class are beginning to read, enjoy puzzles and games, and like to socialize with other children in their age range. They follow directions reliably, and can answer abstract questions, such as “how do you think a composer can make music sound like birds?” He or she enjoys singing, is eager to learn, and can work independently for short periods towards a set goal. These children are ready to begin understanding concepts of practice, proper handling of an instrument, and playing a tune as opposed to exploring ways of creating sound on an instrument. These fundamental ideas are the foundation for Young Child, and through them, we learn about music in a way that makes the learning more natural and easy than private lessons are for children just entering gradeschool.

Q: When Should My Child Begin Private Instrumental Instruction?

As a general rule, most children are not ready to begin formal instrumental training before the age of 6 or 7 for piano or string instruments, and most instructors will not accept students younger than 8 or 9 for other orchestral or band instruments. Before that, they tend to lack the size, stamina, and outcome-oriented commitment to make lessons an enjoyable and successful experience. Children are individuals, with a wide range of aptitude, but all children possess the ability to enjoy lifelong music making, and this ability can be greatly influenced by how we choose to approach their earliest experiences. From experience, most teachers will tell you that the majority of students do not begin to progress rapidly in piano lessons, for example, until they are at least 7 years old.

Kindermusik contains all if the needed elements to develop a child who is musically aware and who has the solid foundation to make lessons a natural and joyous next step. Children who grow up in Kindermusik have had chances to succeed, be nurtured and encouraged in their early creative explorations, and develop a core of music theory instilled through voice, body, and mind. Music for them is a natural part of their environment, and they have gained the language of note, rhythm, and expression to help them as they select which instrument they most wish to make their own. Many experts agree that early musical enrichment lays a foundation for musicianship which may accelerate later progress on an instrument.

Children who graduate from Kindermusik for the Young Child have a strong basis in theory, musicianship, and instrumental technique. More importantly, they have been allowed to develop the whole child through music, in a supportive and reassuring atmosphere, which lays the groundwork for a lifetime of positive outlook not only towards music learning, but towards learning in general.

Press Release: Fall 2009 Classes

by tabbyfoo on Aug 18, 2009 (0) Comments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 17, 2008
Contact: Tabby Worthington
713-306-4023
kindermusik@harmonymusicstudio.com

Getting ready for preschool is child’s play
Fall Kindermusik classes begin September 1st

Friendswood – In a Kindermusik class, miming and singing “Wheels on the Bus” may seem like child’s play, but it’s actually helping a child develop better coordination and language skills. Fall registration begins August 18th for Kindermusik with Ms. Tabby at Harmony Music Studio, where parents and their children—ages newborn to 7 years old—sing, dance and make music together to develop better learning skills for the child. Parents also learn more about the developmental process and benefits by activities in class.

Studies continue to show that music has a positive impact on a child’s ability to learn. Not only in terms of preschool readiness, but making and responding to music can help a child use scissors, kick a ball, as well as have a positive impact on a child’s sense of self-esteem and self-expression. “For a child, being ready for preschool is about feeling comfortable with yourself,” says Tabby Worthington, who operates the Kindermusik program at Harmony Music Studio in Friendswood. “Then they have the confidence to leave mom and dad at home and get involved with what’s going on in preschool.”

Kindermusik classes are designed by music and early childhood educators. Activities are based on new and proven research that music making music can stimulate every area in the child’s development:
• Stimulate a love of diverse styles of music—varied musical exposure leads to language proficiency and spatial-temporal reasoning, which is the foundation for engineering and science.
• Foster creativity using music, dance, drama—children use creative thinking skills in pretend play, enhancing their ability to think in different ways.
• Teaches parents about child development—parents are the child’s first teacher. Kindermusik classes help parents understand the child development process by explaining developmental benefits of each class activity and offering activities they can do together at home.

For more information on getting children ready for preschool, or to learn more about Kindermusik classes starting in the fall, call Tabby Worthington, at 713-306-4023 or send her an email at tabbyfoo @ gmail.com . Ms. Tabby is offering 13 classes, pending enrollment, at Harmony Music Studio on FM 528 at Townes Rd in Friendswood for babies, toddlers, preschoolers and children through age 7. Enroll online at http://www.kmtabby.com For more than 25 years, Kindermusik International has touched the lives of over a million children and their families, introducing them to the joy of learning through music. With a revolutionary combination of music and early childhood development research, more than 4,500 Kindermusik educators teach children ages newborn to 7 in over 35 countries around the world.

Who is Tabby?

by tabbyfoo on Jul 24, 2009 (0) Comments

Ms. Tabby Worthington – Voice, Piano & Kindermusik Instructor

Tabby Worthington hails from the rocky mountains of Salt Lake City, Utah, moving to Texas in 1999 after meeting her husband. She is a mother of 2 children, and has a menagerie of pets. Before she was a music teacher, she worked in technical support and computer repair.

In 2007, Ms. Tabby graduated from Kindermusik University and became a Licensed Kindermusik Educator, which makes her a special expert on early childhood development through music and movement. Kindermusik is a wonderful program for children from infants to 7 year olds. In the classroom, we work on enhancing the development of all areas of the child through music and movement, including cognitive, social, musical, emotional, physical and language development in fun activities.

Ms. Tabby has worked at Harmony Music Studio since 2001. She offers instruction mainly in voice, but occasionally will take on a piano student or two. Ms. Tabby attended the University of Nevada Las Vegas as a Vocal Music Education Major, and has studied with Mr. Tom McKinney as an apprentice of the “One True Voice” method. She has performed in many productions, including:

“Bye, Bye Birdie”
“Anything Goes”
“The Pink Panther Strikes Again”
“Guys & Dolls”
“Into The Woods” – Selected scenes
“The Old Maid and the Thief” – Selected scenes
“La Traviata” and “Candide” – Selected scenes
“The Merry Widow”
“The Magic Flute”

When time permits, Ms. Tabby also enjoys performing with the Bay Area Chorus.

Ms. Tabby encourages all students to try out different styles of music instead of focusing on just one. “I believe that having a well-rounded background in all kinds of music makes for better musicians,” she says. Students in her studio will study music theory and sight singing in addition to working on solo songs. We will study Jazz, Blues, Contemporary, Gospel or Contemporary Christian, Sacred, Classical, Baroque, Musical Theater, and Romantic styles throughout the year on a rotating basis.

You can view Ms. Tabby’s YouTube videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/tabbyfoo – many are of students from the studio, but you’ll catch a glimpse of Ms. Tabby’s family and pets here, too. She enjoys art (drawing, painting, photography), prime-time TV & movies, and video games when she’s not working in the garden.

Ruth D. Anderson Kindermusik Children’s Fund

by tabbyfoo on Jul 03, 2009 (0) Comments

To all who were waiting to hear from me about your scholarship applications for Home Material Scholarships for Kindermusik, I have some great news!

July 1, 2009

Dear Tabby,

On behalf of all of us here at Kindermusik International, I want to thank you for applying for a scholarship through the Ruth D. Anderson Kindermusik Children’s Fund. Thank you most of all for all you are doing to touch the lives of children — children who face unbelievable challenges — each and every day. Without you and educators like you, many of these children (perhaps most) would not have the opportunity to be influenced by the power of music. What you are doing is changing lives – and helping to make our world a much better place.

This year, Kindermusik International and the Ruth D. Anderson Kindermusik Children’s Fund awarded almost 700 sets of home materials to children all over the world as a result of the application process. We are honored that we are able to help — in this small way — to reach these children and families with the Kindermusik experience.

Very best regards,

Michael G. Dougherty
Chairman & CEO