Music classes for toddlers/pre-schoolers - why do you do them?

[joshandjamie]

Those of you who take your baby, toddler or pre-schooler to music classes, why did you choose the one you chose? There seems to be so many music classes out there - ranging from fun to educational - just wondered what the deciding factor for you is.

Is it because it's a learning/educational activity?
Is it because it's fun and a great way for your child to socialise?
Is it because you need to get out of the house so you don't lose your mind and it seemed like a nice thing to do?

The latter was my reason for going and we hated it - I got a headache, DD was terrified and we fled after half an hour and never went back. Now she's a bit older, she likes music though so we may go back.

IMO fun and educational are the same thing for pre-schoolers.

For us it was a mixture of them all. It was nice to get out of the house too but I didn't do on the expectation of making friends myself as it isn't the sort of thing where there is an opportunity to chat.

Unfortunately, DS2 never really liked it. He didn't like sitting in a circle with the other children and following instructions. I think we did it for a year and gave it up with a sigh of relief when he started pre-school.

Because it's never to early to learn to love music in many different ways. It's a great way of interacting with your baby/toddler and doesn't involve getting wet. It progresses as they get bigger and it's just fab.

I went to one once for the second and third reason. It was rubbish. The woman who ran it pitched it too old for the toddlers. She gave out specific instruments and instructions for a song, then sang the song, then collected in all the instruments and doled out different instruments for the next song. There were songs that involved streamers etc to be waved at the appropriate time but they had to be handed back at the end of that song. There was a gap of about 5 mins between each song. I was looking for something along the lines of big box of instruments in the middle for anyone who wanted one and a continuous stream of songs with no gaps and no rules or instructions.

Thanks for the answers. I agree that fun = educational at that age. But some of them seem to be more formal/educational while others seem to focus on the fun bits (and by proxy the learning takes place). I just wondered which would appeal more to you as a parent - something that offered more formal musical education or something that seemed more fun and relaxed but less obvious 'educational' benefits.

As a parent the structured approach which I suppose is more educational, more focussed on instruction and doing things together, is better as it is a lot less noisy!

I honesty don't see the appeal of just getting together to sing songs with the children doing what they are like. You can do that at a toddler group and surely, it only has a limited appeal of 5 - 10 minutes?

This is just my opinion. However, any group is only as good as the teacher. Leaving a 5 minute gap between songs, unless there is an element of story telling or something seems too much.

If it helps, we did Monkey Music which is a national franchise. Most children seemed to like it but DS just was not interested. I wonder if it is a girl thing more than boys? We had an overwhelming majority of girls in our group.

We didn't go to any specifically music groups when DS was a baby or toddler - his toddler group had a chunk of music every time, so there didn't seem to be any reason to do it as an "activity".

But he went to one from pre-school age which was aimed much more at being an introduction to music and was the first "stage" in saturday morning classes working up from pre-schoolers to instrument lessons in small groups. That was definitely intended as fun/learning and also to test out whether it was something he was interested in continuing with.

Personally I wouldn't/didn't go to any for socialising or getting out of the house, as there were enough general groups for that without specialising IYSWIM.

I run under 5 music classes and recently conducted a survey amongst my parents. The answers to roughly the same questions came out fairly evenly split.

Around 25% said they came because they needed to get out of the house or else they'd bang their heads against the wall/throw themselves out the window (their comments!)

The rest were split between it being educational/learning/musical knowledge etc and going because it was fun and gaining social interaction/co-operation. I would say though that these two categories are pretty much connected to each other - young children soon switch off if they're not having fun and if classes weren't enjoyable for both the children and adults, they'd pretty soon be empty!

The responses did vary depending on the ages of the children - babies and toddlers were more on the fun/socialisation side, the pre-schoolers' parents wanted more structure and learning about music.

DD (8mths) and I are going to start Monkey Music on Friday. I picked it as I know people who have been. We are going as dd adores other kids and music and I am sure she will love it. Makes a change from going to the shops or visiting friends. I think it will be really cute watching her.

I did this with dd (Jo JIngles) from about 8 months until she started pre-school at 2.8. She really enjoyed it, I was keen to encourage music as I have always been musical (however, wouldn't have persevered if she wasn't interested). I preferred a structured approach to toddler activities than playgroups and we also had friends that did it. So, I think, a mixture of all 3 !

I chose to go because it was there, it got me out of the house, the people I knew from post-natal went.
I chose that particular one because it was in our village and cheap.

Oh forgot to say too, the primary reason for going to a particular class (in this case mine ), rather than one of the many others on offer, was personal recommendation. 90% of my business comes through word of mouth - people like a recommendation so they don't turn up to something that's completely pants.