Our Music Studio Trial

If you've been on the hunt for a music and movement programme for little ones, you might have realised that Kindermusik is no more. I had been bringing Naomi for Kindermusik class since the start of the year and was surprised when I was informed at the start of our 2nd term that the franchise was not going to be renewed at the end of April. Instead, the teachers have banded together to start their own programme under a new name: Our Music Studio. I was told that it would be based on the same concept as Kindermusik, but with different songs and themes.

They ran a free trial for a week at the beginning of May which coincided with the end of Naomi's Kindermusik term, so we decided to check it out.

What the programme is like (6 to 18months):

Like they promised, the new programme is very similar in structure to the previous Kindermusik programme. It starts with a short session of free play, where the kids are given balls to play with. Naomi loves this and can often be found stealing balls from other more helpless babies.

After the balls are packed away, everyone settles down in a circle to sing the "hello" song. Every child is sang hello to in turn, with different actions.

After the hello song, it's time for a little baby massage and stretching. The latter is where we move the babies arms and legs to promote cross mid-line movement. Again, this is something we used to do in Kindermusik. Naomi is always the baby who refuses to lie still at this point and it's an achievement if I can get through one sequence with her.

Thereafter, the activities vary, depending on the week. For this particular class, the egg shakers came out. And it was not a moment too soon! All the kids love getting their hands on instruments, and Naomi was gleefully running around shake, shake, shaking it. The lesson was on Steady Beat, so babies and mummies shook and tapped their shakers along to the music demonstrating the steady beat. After that, the shakers were put away and we got to our feet to dance with our babies to a piece of music. Then the drums come out -- another hot favourite! Babies and mummies beat, scratch and tap on the drum to a piece of music in turn, and to different rhythms.

The parachute came out to play at some point. Naomi the peekaboo-queen loves this and is always running under the parachute to play as mummies and babies whoosh the parachute up and down, again to music.

After all the dancing and playing, there's some quiet time to change the pace. Balls come out for play and the teacher handed round cups of water.

Then it's back on our feet for a couple of dances before it ends with the goodbye song. All in about 1 hour.

What I like about it:

Having attended Kindermusik previously with both my kids, I liked the familiar format. The same-ness also made it easy for Naomi to adapt. I also liked that they had retained the access to instruments, which is very popular with the kids.

As promised, there is no longer any music package to buy. It used to be a requirement for every Kindermusik module that enrolled students had to purchase the music package, which included a CD of songs for the module, a book, a chart and a musical instrument. I always felt it was quite a rip-off. I didn't mind getting the CD and might have done it on my own accord to play to the kids, but the books and charts were really not great and of no use to me. For this new class, we were told that the teachers had recorded a disc of songs to be used for the class which we could choose to purchase if we wished to, with no obligations.

What I didn't like so much about it:

I felt that the lesson was a bit more disjointed than usual. Also there was more of a reliance on the teacher's singing than on music being played on the player, possibly due to musical recordings being unavailable? I'm not sure. Because it was a trial class, there was also a lot more explaining being done by the teacher which made things a bit more draggy. I also felt that the music selection for this module wasn't that engaging.

Overall:

Everything said, I honestly believe that a lot of what I wasn't so impressed by are teething issues which will be worked out over time. It was really rather chaotic during the free trial lesson with many new people turning up to try out the class. To be fair, I went back the following week when I knew there would be fewer students and the class did run better. The max size of the class for Naomi's age group is 12, but I've always felt that 8 kids is optimal. I'm sure the class will also run more smoothly once the teachers get accustomed to it and fine-tune the programme.

For this, I must say that I have confidence that the experienced teachers at the helm of this venture will make it work. I've always liked Naomi's teacher, YC. She's very sweet to all the babies and I like the fact that even though I've attended her class week after week for a few months, the activities and dances were always different each week. At the same time, she also knew which staples to repeat every week -- like the drums -- because they were so popular with the kids.

Naomi probably won't be continuing with the new programme, at least at this time. Not because of the change, but because I had always intended to stop after the last module to let her try something new. But if you are looking for a music and movement programme, you might like to try this one out. Now is also a good time to sign up because it's $30 per class for this term and they are waiving the registration fee.

Who knows, we might be back if I can't find something else more suitable!