Class Descriptions

Now Offering a Flexible Drop-In Option!

We’re excited to offer a limited number of drop-in spots for families who would like to try out a class! Children thrive with regular weekly attendance, as it helps them grow more comfortable with the music and activities while building connections with other families in our musical community.

If you’re planning to join us for more than one class, the cost of this class will be credit towards your tuition.

Why Join a Music Class for Your Baby or 1-Year-Old?

Every baby is born ready for music. Just as infants naturally soak up spoken language, they absorb the sounds, rhythms, and patterns of music around them. Research shows that early musical experiences nurture your baby’s physical, emotional, and brain development—strengthening key cognitive and sensory connections.

In our classes, your baby is gently introduced to the "language" of music through simple, repeating patterns. These playful activities strengthen the ear–brain connection, laying the groundwork for pitch, rhythm, and musical expression. Before long, you’ll watch your little one begin to respond, imitate, and take their first joyful steps into music-making!

Who Is This Class For?

Designed for babies from birth to 18 months. Families are welcome to jump in at any time—some parents even register before their baby arrives! As the children get older the material adapts for the "mobile" baby.  What is important to note is that the parent/cargiver continues to get information, encouragement and practice to incorporate music in the everyday world of the growing baby and toddler.

What Happens in Class?

Each week is filled with warm, engaging musical play:

• Interactive Fun: Singing, gentle dancing, rocking, and steady-beat activities.

• Sensory Exploration: Simple instruments, colorful scarves, rhymes, fingerplays, and lullabies.

• Home-Ready Tools: Take-home ideas and songs to continue the fun in your daily routine.

Above all, these classes offer a quiet space to bond with your baby while connecting with a warm, supportive community of local parents.

 

Family Music for Toddlers (Ages 2–3)

Toddlers are full of energy, endlessly curious, and rapidly discovering their independence. Our Musikgarten Family Music for Toddlers program channels that vibrant energy into purposeful, fun-filled learning!

Through a natural blend of music and movement, this program lays the groundwork for essential life and learning skills:

• Core Skills: Active listening, following directions, impulse control, communication, and positive social interaction.

• Whole-Child Growth: Nurtures social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development while building a strong foundation for future musical proficiency.

What to Expect in Class

Each weekly lesson is packed with hands-on activities designed for parents and toddlers to share together:

• Movement & Physical Play: Games focused on coordination, spatial awareness, and body control.

• Instrument Exploration: Hands-on play with rhythm sticks, jingles, rattles, drums, and resonator bars.

• Shared Musical Fun: Singing, chanting, dancing, listening, and making music side-by-side.

Program Structure

• Duration: A 2-year sequence composed of four 15-week units: New Friends, On a Trip, Animal Friends and My Day.

• Who Can Join: children ages 2 and 3 and their parents or caregivers (siblings welcome!).

Additionally, you will be able to listen to the wonderful recordings we use in class at home or in your car.  The material comes as a CD and as downloadable files. Also included is a parent/child activity book containing the songs we use in class and pictures that you can read and sing with your child.

 

Family Music for Toddlers (Ages 2–3)

Toddlers are full of energy, endlessly curious, and rapidly discovering their independence. Our Musikgarten Family Music for Toddlers program channels that vibrant energy into purposeful, fun-filled learning!

Through a natural blend of music and movement, this program lays the groundwork for essential life and learning skills:

• Core Skills: Active listening, following directions, impulse control, communication, and positive social interaction.

• Whole-Child Growth: Nurtures social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development while building a strong foundation for future musical proficiency.

What to Expect in Class

Each weekly lesson is packed with hands-on activities designed for parents and toddlers to share together:

• Movement & Physical Play: Games focused on coordination, spatial awareness, and body control.

• Instrument Exploration: Hands-on play with rhythm sticks, jingles, rattles, drums, and resonator bars.

• Shared Musical Fun: Singing, chanting, dancing, listening, and making music side-by-side.

Program Structure

• Duration: A 2-year sequence composed of four 15-week units: New Friends, On a Trip, Animal Friends and  My Day

• Who Can Join: Toddlers and their parents or caregivers (siblings welcome!).

Additionally, you will be able to listen to the wonderful recordings we use in class at home or in your car.  The material comes as a CD and as downloadable files. Also included is a parent/child activity book containing the songs we use in class and pictures that you can read and sing with your child.

This program is designed for children ages four and early fives.  Perfect for a child new to Musikgarten and entering a Pre K 4 year old program.  Also for children who have completed the Cycle of Seasons program but would benefit from an additional year before beginning the Music Makers At Home curriculum. For 

Throughout the first part of the year, we will use the Nimble and Quick and Twist and Turn curriculum, which is centered around beloved nursery rhymes. Children will continue to develop their musical skills through storytelling, ensemble activities, singing, dancing, and playing a variety of musical instruments.

Beginning in February, we will transition into the Music Makers curriculum with Our Neighborhood and Summer. This progression helps children build the confidence and skills they need to be fully prepared for Music Makers At Home in the World the following fall.

 

This pre-piano and music and movement program gives your child a solid music-making foundation in a fun music-filled environment.  We focus on your child's fascination with cultures from around the world.  By the end of the year your child will be ready to start the Keyboard program next September!

We will be exploring the culture, stories and music from:

• The British Isles (session 1A)
• AmerIndians (session 1B)
• Germany, the Land of the Great Composers (session 2A)
• African American Heritage (session 2B)

We will also create music ensembles using a variety of instruments.  Also we will begin to introduce the piano, playing choreography games, learning a basic hand position and perhaps finding the pieces we love to sing in class at the piano.  There is no requirement to own a piano at home and there will be no "practice the piano" home work during this year.   

The program provides a developmentally sound approach to music literacy that builds symbolic thinking, concentration, memory, and self-expression, introduces orchestral instruments and ensemble play and focuses on building a child's aural (listening) foundation which leads to long-term success with voice, enhancement of self-discipline and social skills, first steps in reading music.


The next session of Music Makers starts September and continues for two sessions of 15 classes ending through May.   
All Students will receive the following home material for the September through January session.

Unit 1: The British Isles  (first half of session)

This unit includes:

1. The British Isles poster.
2. The British Isles  CD and downloadable song code
3. Game Pieces to develop Tonal and Rhythm skills
4. Song Pages related to the songs we are learning

Unit 2: AmerIndian Unit (second half of session)



This unit includes:

1. Amerindian Poster (10" x 15") and game pieces
2. Amerindians CD and downloadable song Code
3. Game Pieces to develop Tonal and Rhythm skills
4. Song Pages related to the songs we are learning

The session material also includes a Parent Booklet covering both units.

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New students will need to purchase the Music Makers notebook, the Musikgarten Red Bag and the instruments for home play set.  The cost for this is $60 above the home material and tuition fee. 

Music Makers Notebook 


Musikgarten Red Bag



 

Music Makers: At the Keyboard (Age 7+)

Music Makers: At the Keyboard is a comprehensive, group-based piano program designed to build true music literacy. Beyond basic note-reading, true musical literacy empowers children to "hear" written sheet music in their minds and play songs by ear—laying a lifelong foundation for musical success.

Why Choose a Group Aural Approach?

• Learn by Ear First: Children read notation best after establishing a strong ear for music. Keyboard skills are introduced at a comfortable pace so students build deep understanding.

• Rapid Progress: In their very first year, students learn over 25 songs across 10 major and minor keys, playing chords with both hands!

• Fun & Collaborative: Group learning incorporates singing games, dancing, and drumming—keeping music-making active, reducing performance anxiety, and building team confidence.

• Comprehensive Skill-Building: Class activities include tonal singing, rhythmic movement, pattern echoing, composition, and dictation to nurture complete, independent musicians.

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Required Materials for Book 1:

• Book 1 Student Book & Weekly Assignment Notebook

• 2 Audio CDs (Listening CD & Practice CD)

• Parent Guide with tips for supporting success at home

• Musikgarten Tote Bag (Included for new Music Makers students)

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"We all enjoyed your program so much! What is truly amazing is that they walked into class not knowing one thing about music—and look at them now! You did an amazing job!"

— Parent of a Book 4 Graduate

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We continue our aural approach at the piano, presenting all new Challenges in Book 3.  The children will contineu to play songs by ear, but now they will be asked to figure out the patterns for themselves.  More work with scales will allow them to move all around the keyboard with ease.  They will be introduced to the wonderful music of Beethoven, Glinka, Saint-Saens, and Chopin, and they will be reading several familiar and new pieces.

Book 3 brings the children many new notation games and also opportunities to take dictation of familiar songs.  They will continue to improvise and compose, adding dynamics, articulation, and expression markings so that their results are more musical than ever!

 Material for Book 3 Classes:
Book 3 Student book
2  fresh CDS (a listening CD and a special Practice CD) and  codes for the downloadable recorded music 

Book 5 is full of new reading pieces and other surprises!  We will explore the following pieces:
The Musical Clock by Haydn, I See the Moon, Bagpipe, The Bear Went Over the Mountain, Bow To Your Partner, Lavender's Blue, Country Garden, Twinkle, Twinkle, Friendly Coversation and Hey! Let's Dance Together.  We will add favorites and supplementary pieces.  We are creating our own improvised piece.  Scales are getting stronger and we are adding chord progressions.  We explore Root position chords.  "By ear" pieces are still be learned in multiple keys. Dictation, music history, Note Naming Games, Solfeggio, composition, and improvisation are all components of this wonderful and comprehensive session.

But we aren't done.  By the time they have gotten to this point in Music Makers: At the Keyboard They have already learned to play many songs by ear in multiple positions on the keyboard.  Their ability to read music has made it possible for them to play some of the smae pieces that young pianists, from all over the workd, have studied.  They have been introduced to the great music of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Dvorak, Glinka, Hadyn, MacDowell, Mozart, and Saint-Saens.
As thkey begin working in Book 5, they will encounter more music of Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart, a nd they will be introduced to Mouret and Bartok.  They will learn to play a piece by Ferdinand Beyer.  Additionally, They will be treated to several improvised solos by Howard Baer.  These will help to prepare them for making important decisions regarding the improvsed solos they will be working on throughout this session.

We will continue to work on playing scales, moving on to playing with both hands in parallel motion, and they will be learning to play arpeggios.  There are several lively pieces to drum and dance to, challenging notation games to play, and a musical time-line that wil will work on through the session. 

There is  Book 6 which we will explore in the next session.  I hope you can stay with the program and reap the fruits at the end of the Book 6.  What musicians we are creating in this musical classroom!

Home Material includes Book 5, Notation cards and Recordings in downloadable and CD format.

Book 5 is full of new reading pieces and other surprises!  We will explore the following pieces:
The Musical Clock by Haydn, I See the Moon, Bagpipe, The Bear Went Over the Mountain, Bow To Your Partner, Lavender's Blue, Country Garden, Twinkle, Twinkle, Friendly Coversation and Hey! Let's Dance Together.  We will add favorites and supplementary pieces.  We are creating our own improvised piece.  Scales are getting stronger and we are adding chord progressions.  We explore Root position chords.  "By ear" pieces are still be learned in multiple keys. Dictation, music history, Note Naming Games, Solfeggio, composition, and improvisation are all components of this wonderful and comprehensive session.

But we aren't done.  By the time they have gotten to this point in Music Makers: At the Keyboard They have already learned to play many songs by ear in multiple positions on the keyboard.  Their ability to read music has made it possible for them to play some of the smae pieces that young pianists, from all over the workd, have studied.  They have been introduced to the great music of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Dvorak, Glinka, Hadyn, MacDowell, Mozart, and Saint-Saens.
As thkey begin working in Book 5, they will encounter more music of Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart, a nd they will be introduced to Mouret and Bartok.  They will learn to play a piece by Ferdinand Beyer.  Additionally, They will be treated to several improvised solos by Howard Baer.  These will help to prepare them for making important decisions regarding the improvsed solos they will be working on throughout this session.

We will continue to work on playing scales, moving on to playing with both hands in parallel motion, and they will be learning to play arpeggios.  There are several lively pieces to drum and dance to, challenging notation games to play, and a musical time-line that wil will work on through the session. 

There is  Book 6 which we will explore in the next session.  I hope you can stay with the program and reap the fruits at the end of the Book 6.  What musicians we are creating in this musical classroom!

Home Material includes Book 5, Notation cards and Recordings in downloadable and CD format.