Preschool/baby music classes. What do you love/hate about them?

[Ceolas]

I used to teach franchised classes but stopped last year to have DD3. I have a background in teaching and in music and DH is encouraging me to 'go it alone' and do my own classes.

I know what I like and believe to be educationally sound, but what do you as a parent love/hate about the classes you go to.

And also, what do you pay and for how long?

I have been going to a Presma class with my daughter since she was 2 1/2 (now nearly 4) and it is excellent.
It is the right length (40 mins). The teacher uses a good mix of familiar and new songs, often doing the same few songs for 3-4 weeks and gradually replacing them with new ones so that each week is different but familiar enough (if you see what I mean).
The songs are themed to do with the time of year, festivals, weather etc.
It's not just music but movement too, a good balance of moving around the room and sitting still, listening to each other and playing instruments loudly, quietly, slowly, fast etc.
I also like the fact that all children from 1 year old to 4 can join in at their own level.
I like the fact that Presma is a non-profitmaking organisation and the fees are (I think) a bit cheaper than the commercial ones -c.£16 a half term plus an annual subscription of £10, which goes to subsidise low income families who can't afford the fees, which I think is fair enough.
There isn't much I dislike about it, only the effort of getting there and back!
My daugher is starting to grow out of it now (though she has been enjoying it for a good 18 months) so if there was a disadvantage I guess it would be having to commit yourself in advance. But I suppose the teachers need to know so they can book rooms and be sure of a reasonable income!

i tried monkey music and despised it. it wasn;t about music at all - just letting mothers spend money to pass the time with some other mums. i hated the tape recorded music, crap song lyrics and the fact that it could have been anyone in that room - the people there made no difference whatsoever, cos that stupid tape machine would just keep going anyway.
i've since found a local class run by a guy who plays guitar and writes his own songs. he has real instruments for the kids to play which they love. he also sings some nursery rhymes which i like, as i like those traditional songs.
dd (18months) loves it as well

HTH

When DS was 1 we went to a little music group run by a music teacher in her front room. It was lovely and unstructured. DS still remembered being allowed to strum the guitar to twinkle twinkle years later. Unfortunately she moved so we had to stop going.

When he was 3 I took him to a lovely little music group run by East Herts Music. This was lovely we all took part, fairly structured, and everyone was allowed to take part even underage siblings. A good grounding in proper music but very enjoyable for a 3 year old. Unfortunately they changed the teacher and DS hated it. It became very staid, parents were discouraged and so were siblings. We had to stand in the hallway through the lesson and DS ended up hiding under the piano. Also very much more girl orientated than boy.

With DD we went to Musical Teapots which is a local run group, which does

"Established for ten years, Musical Teapots is an hour long session that provides a fun and friendly environment to stimulate children's imagination through music. The sessions are structured to include music, movement, singing and improving social skills. They always include a dressing up activity and have a variety of soft toys and props, together with a range of musical instruments. They have special feature time each week and explore a new topic - animals, colours, the parachute and many more."

DD loved and went for 2 years.

Thanks for all your comments ladies. Most helpful

I know MrsB has a baby, but does anyone else have any views specifically relating to baby classes? IYO, what works/doesn't work with babies?

We go to Jo Jingles - chosen on the basis of it's the only class local to me and at a time that suits.

I love it for:
Routines and familiarity - DS knows what's coming and gets in to his favourite songs
Getting to play several different instruments each week
The CD player and leader's singing being loud enough to make me confident to sing to DS (I loathe singing I'm going for DS' benefit not mine!)
The structure is really teaching DS simple things like turn taking, sharing, following instructions, listening to an "authority figure" etc
There's a mixture of sitting still and movement

I dislike:
Having to sit cross legged on a hard floor for 40 min - I have a bad back and Mondays are agony as a result of this class
There's no time for socialising as at the end of the class you move out for the next class
The garish red and yellow (but admittedly DS seems to like that)
The fact that some mums force their child to sit still whilst tantrumming because it's a sitting still song - I'd rather they were free to run around the hall if that's what makes them happy!

Up until now, I've refused to go to a music class, mainly because I find them so commercialised, expensive and soul-destroying (we had a 'music with mummy' demo at our ante-natal group, and that was enough to put me off). I think £4-5 is too much for something that people just used to do...

Having said that, our local NCT now run one, and it costs £1 a session, we have 30-35 min of singing, a break with tea and coffee for parents, fruit and juice for babies, then either musical instruments, or coloured parachute or actions to music or all of the above.

I've taken my twin girls to a number of different classes.

What I like best about all of them is:

Relaxed teacher. I did "music with mummy" when they were about 15 months old and the teacher got really ratty at them toddling off. That annoyed me, they weren't running riot, disturbing everyone - they were just toddling about and I don't think she was holding their interest, just going through the motions.

Lively teacher - I think you need to keep the pace up for the whole session. I think any longer than 30 minutes for the actual class is too tiring.

Chat and toys after - means you can concentrate on the class but have time for a coffee and catch up with other mums and dads as well.

Songs I know - I hate those classes with franchised songs I've never heard of or traditional songs with new words to get around copyright issues. I want to sing songs and lyrics I know as my baby brain is too knackered to remember new ones!

Lots of props - puppets, shiny blue material to be like the sea. Rainbow material that all the kids can swish up and down or the parents can swish whilst the kids go under. I went to a great class with a sea theme where the material had loads of toy fish stitched to the bottom which fluttered about when the material was lifted up

We go to a local independent music class which has a great reputation - parents certainly come back with subsequent children, and they stay in classes all the way up to school.

I can only speak for the baby class so far (0 to 1 year), and we have really enjoyed it.

We like:

• No 'backing tracks', only classical music switched on for the quiet time (with scarves)or folk music for the dancing
• Good variation of sitting and standing/walking/marching/dancing (sometimes feels like a workout, especially when lugging a 1 year old about)
• No restriction on babies moving around class
• Teacher knows everyones names, and hello/goodbye songs incorporate all childrens names
• Plastic see-saw comes out with a special song and is a great hit with the babies, they all get a turn. Very tiny babies are swung in a blanket
• Songs are short and repeated at least 4 times, usually with varying rhythms/volumes
• The owner is VERY enthusiastic, and goes into detail about the musical principles behind every lesson if you ask, the teachers don't bother to go into it though as a rule.

Not so keen:

• Parents keep their shoes on during class, would prefer to have a shoes off rule, as seems more hygenic - have been occasional problems with mud/dust etc.
• No teaching of words, you have to pick them up as you go along (there is a book though)
• Songs where each parent in turn has to sing solo (usually only a short sentence with childs name)
• No socialising after class, unless you arrange it yourself

Classes last 35 minutes with is just long enough, cost about £5 a session though! (discount for early payment)

So you sing unaccompanied for the most part, Lionstar?

This seems to be a dividing issue. The theory is that children respond best to their own parent's voice and learn to sing in tune when unaccompanied. But lots of you feel more confident singing with a backing CD/loud teacher...

Yes we sing unaccompanied, but the teacher always starts us off with the right note. It always sounds good too, even though most of us are not very confident about our voices individually.

In fact when we sing in rounds (class split in two, one starting a phrase behind the other) it often sounds quite beautiful and I think the parents get quite a kick out of that.

I go to twentypence's music classes (she posts on here) with DD (3) and DS (11 months)

She does a mix of unaccompanied songs and ones with CDs - the CDs are good as they use PROPER instruments and singing, none of that plinkyplonky synthesised crap. I think it's really important that the parents can sing the songs outside class (and not just by being urged to purchase some overpriced franchis CD). We also use the same songs week to week, always the same hello and goodbye songs etc, which is great - children love repetition. It's a good idea to give out the words to the most used songs.

We also use simple instruments - drums, chime bars, maracas, bells etc. And lots of things that emphasise basic musical concepts (scales, tonic-dominant, cadences, going up, going down, loud, soft, fast, slow etc.) but in a fun way so the children don't actually notice they're learning it as such. Also circle songs with the rainbow ring and the parachute, and lots of things were we move around the room - it's just not realistic to expect toddlers and crawling babies to sit still for long. And although wanderers are encouraged to rejoin the group (I am afraid at the moment the main wandererer is my DD ) they are never told off and it isn't allowed to disturb the class.

the best thing is that the classes are fairly small and numbers are limited and therefore individual - if the children are particularly interested in something e.g counting then we'll do stuff about that. Also she is very clearly a musician and as one myself I prefer that the teacher knows what they're on about rather than just blindly teaching a franchise.

ALSO I think it is very common for parents, especially those who are musically unsure, to very much stick to the 'rules' and be almost afraid of doing their own thing with music in case it's 'wrong'. I think it's really important for the teacher to let them know how music can be incorporated into daily life; it's not just for 'lessons' and you don't have to do exactly what you did in the class. E.g, make up other words to the tunes you learnt in class, sing songs about what the child is doing, have a tune for putting toys away, encourage the child to make up lines to songs, sing about the animals/people/houses/vehicles you see along the way, ask them questions about any music you hear, encourage them to dance. Music isn't just for musicians, it's for EVERYBODY and I think that's the most important thing for families to take away from a music class.

If you would like any other ideas I strongly recommend asking twentypence, especially re the babies. My DS has been going since he was a couple of weeks old and LOVES it. I think running a class where both toddlers and babies attend is brilliant as a lot of the time watching the toddlers keeps the babies entertained anyway. But you can also include them in circle songs, give them smaller maracas, get the parent/caregiver to do action songs to the baby whilst the toddler does them (along the lines of heads, shoulders, knees and toes etc.)

Cost wise, we're in NZ so no point comparing it, but they are pretty cheap really. We pay for a term in advance which I think is fair enough, especially when class sizes are small - occasionally we go to another very large drop in class which is utter CHAOS and rammed with overexcited children - we far prefer the smaller classses and from the point of view of the teacher, you need to ensure that you have a regular income. if you run a class for e.g. 30 then it's a lot easier to charge per session.

You don't actually need a lot of fancy equipment, but lots of parents really won't think they're getting value for money if you don't have a fair few sets of instruments and props (as has already been pointed out); it's probably also always worth emphasising that the instruments are washed every time, especially for mothers of PFBs!

I have gone on, but am hopefully going to start doing preschool music classes of some sort myself so it is a subject close to my heart....oh and ours are 30 mins which I think is about right, DD could go on for longer sometimes but then we do lots of music all the time, which brings me back to my point of enabling parents to incorporate music into everyday life

I used to go to a franchised class
It was very busy, had handmade instruments - shakers made from bottles and drums from formula tins
The songs were all made up and involved puppets etc. Accompaniment was a very tinny CD player that had started to go v distorted by the time we left

I now go to a small indie class. It is mostly classic songs, some puppets/toys, accompanied by a piano. At the end the kids get an instrument for 2 songs

30 mins long, £7.50 (London)

I go to small independent class and love it. There are lots of fingers puppets for the kids (at least 2 songs with puppets for them and several more with puppets for teacher). They also get instruments, drums, cymbals, maracas, for a couple of songs. Lots of counting songs and animal songs. But most important for me was that the music comes from a real piano with proper piano lady, or I would be happy with guitar, as long as it is a real instrument, not just a CD player. Pay £7 ish for 30 mins.

hey wilbur, I think we are going to the same place in fact I think you recommended it to me years ago

Yes, I think I did, blonde. Hope you're enjoying it!