About Musical Munchkins
Class Descriptions | About Miss Andrea | Location
Andrea Soberman brought this highly acclaimed pre-school music program to Orange County in the Hudson Valley where she taught for 25 years. In 2018 , Miss Andrea moved to Waterbury, Vermont, after having fallen in love with Vermont’s landscape and culture.
Step by step and age by age, our curriculum gently builds skills by connecting to children with warmth and great fun, making friends, spending special time with their caregivers, and learning so much while having the time of their lives.
Why is music important to a young child's Development
The most important activity you can do to enhance your child's verbal, cognitive and physical development is exposing them to music combined with movement in the early years.
As humans, we all speak, sing move and dance as a natural part of who we are. Yet music is often seen as only geared for those who are gifted. All of us want our children to develop sensitivity and leadership. We want them to have the tools for creativity, cooperation, and self-expression.
Music, more than any other art form, is a perfect vehicle for teaching these essentials in life. Just like language is developed during the first three years of life, most recent brain research says musical intelligence is formed during this early period as well. Children exposed to music in their early years often learn more quickly and show more advanced verbal, cognitive and analytical skills later on in life. Early musical experiences help the young child in their development of language, as well as their gross motor, social, and listening skills, all of which are necessary before a child is ready to read music and study an instrument. A child’s experience of making music, however, is simply one of complete absorption and happiness.
Why Choose us?
The most important ingredient in our classes is FUN! Your child will get their first introduction to music, and they will leave Musical Munchkins with a great ear for different rhythmic and melodic sounds and of course, they’ll be joyfully singing.
Your child will learn how to keep a beat, enhance their sense of rhythm, pitch, meter and melody – thereby honing speech, language, listening and focusing skills!
Our curriculum is composed of songs and activities from the finest music educators and performers of our time. Besides our own wonderful Musical Munchkins repertorie, your children will be exposed to songs and activities from such legends as Laurie Berkner, Lynn Kleiner, Jackie Silberg, Raffi, Ella Jenkins, and Bob Messano and of course songs by Miss Andrea.
Your children will learn important social interaction skills such as sharing, taking turns, and how to be part of a group.
Our classes include a variety of musical experiences: such as singing, chanting, movement, dancing, song stories, books, plus high quality instruments, such as gathering drums, lollipop drums, shakers, triangles, woods, ethnic instruments, tambourines, xylophones, as well as movement props and puppets to encourage active participation.
Musical activities are enhanced with the accompaniment of live music with guitar as well as a variety of recorded music selections: classical, jazz, world music and much more!
Our classes are age appropriate: As music and early childhood teachers, we know that children learn best in an environment that nurtures and challenges them. This is best accomplished in a class that is geared specifically for their age level. As children mature from babies to Kindergarten age, the developmental changes are incredible, and our curriculum “grows” with them from semester to semester. Musical Munchkins students find it easy to stay focused for an entire class, 45 minutes to 1 hour in length, because our curriculum is 100% age-appropriate and fun.