At Let's Play Music, we value the entire process of learning, including acknowledging mistakes, having courage to try, and embracing opportunities to increase confidence.
A Happy Musician
One reason to choose Let's Play Music for your child's first musical adventure is to instill a love for music. Love is going to motivate a child for years to come! Students (hey, and parents too) may hit a moment when they say: "I'm not good at this! I just can't get this right!" But here at LPM, we embrace not doing it right and see making mistakes as vital steps in the process of learning! The struggle is part of the process and the process doesn't make us sad!
Modes of Learning
At Let's Play Music, we respect what educational psychology and neuropsychology experts have to tell us about how children experience the learning process. The fact is, teaching with a multi-sensory approach stimulates and enhances the entire learning process. The four broad modes of learning are visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic. Children often have a preferred learning mode, but can improve at learning via other modes with practice. LPM gives them that opportunity with activities in each mode that complement each other.
In our classes, we'll use the magnetic staff, puppets, and hand signs (visual), singing, ear-training, echoing and listening (auditory), strumming, keyboarding, tapping, clapping and hand signs (tactile), and dancing, moving, skipping, jumping, stomping and conducting (kinesthetic) to teach!
Research also tells us that play is the first form of learning, and enhances learning and motivates students.
A Three Year Process
We value meaningful learning: when a learned concept is fully understood to the extent that it relates to other knowledge. Meaningful learning implies a comprehensive knowledge of the context of the facts learned. The LPM curriculum is intentionally sequential: skills move from simple to complex, building on what is already known, allowing students to construct the meaning.
Let’s Play Music is based on experiential learning. Students experience input, THEN form conclusions, THEN create a reference. For example, students learn to audiate and sing notated patterns with mastery before learning the symbolic association note letters on the staff. See our post on note-reading.
Every concept is repeated and reinforced before we eventually label it. A lot of labeling such as, note naming, rhythm terminology, and chord numbering, comes in year three of Let’s Play Music. After students have experienced the meaning and use of these concepts.
It is important to complete the entire three-year Let’s Play Music program in order to experience a solid musical foundation. This foundation will guide the student as they continue in their musical endeavors thus furthering their musical experience and connections. The specific activities planned for each class over three years were carefully scheduled to provide a tidy conclusion to the basic concepts developed.
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