Discover the joy and educational value of Music Together^® while bonding with your child through play and music.

As hundreds of thousands of families worldwide know, Music Together is the joy of children and their grownups sharing songs, rhymes, movement, and instrument play, both in music class and in their daily lives. A pioneering music and movement curriculum for children, Music Together offers classes for children newborn through age 7, in which parents and caregivers actively participate. Essential to the Music Together approach is the belief that all children are musical, and that their natural aptitude for music will blossom in a sufficiently rich music environment. In fact, when given a supportive music environment, children learn to sing and dance as naturally as they learn to walk and talk.

How is this possible? Children learn differently from adults. They learn instinctively and constantly. They teach themselves through imitation and play, through being immersed in their environment, and through every interaction with adults and older children. The family-like setting of Music Together's mixed-age class offers an ideal learning environment which enables siblings to attend together, and allows infants, toddlers, and preschoolers to freely participate at their own levels.

Music Together teachers are specially trained in helping adults, too, feel at ease as music-makers. It's a completely safe atmosphere for you to explore your own inner ballerina or get out the air guitar--and feel closer to your child while doing so. Setting an example as an enthusiastic participator in music activities is the best thing any parent or caregiver can do to help set a child on the road to a lifelong love of music.

In Music Together classes:

• Fully trained, registered Music Together teachers lead groups of children and, in babies' and mixed-age classes, their grownups in music and movement experiences each week.
  
• Ten to twelve songs and rhythmic rhymes, including fingerplays, small and large movement activities, and instrument play, and a variety of props are offered each week.
  
• Flexible lesson plans give participants opportunities to create and improvise--to make up new words to songs, offer movement ideas, make silly sounds, and share music ideas from the family's play at home.
  
• The research-based curriculum develops music skills; nurtures creativity, self-expression, and confidence; and provides social, emotional, cognitive, and physical developmental benefits.
  
• The relaxed, playful, non-performance-oriented classroom setting respects and supports the unique learning styles, developmental levels, and temperaments of all participants, creating a strong sense of community.
  
• Classroom activities are supported by at-home materials. Music Together goes far beyond the classroom experience. Its wealth of engaging songs and activities serve as a springboard for spontaneous music play at home, empowering families and filling their daily lives with musical joy.

Founded in 1987, Music Together is an international, research-based music and movement program for infants, toddlers and their adult caregivers , which began as an educational project at the Center for Music and Young Children in Princeton, New Jersey. Early childhood expert and composer, Mr. Kenneth Guilmartin is the founder of Music Together, and co-authored the program with Dr. Lili Levinowitz, one of this country’s leading researchers in early childhood music development. The program is based on the premise that all children are musical; that it is in fact as natural to be musical as it is to walk and to talk, that it is just as much of a birthright, and that all human beings have the same innate ability to learn music as they do to learn language and movement. To learn more about Music Together, please visit the national website from our home page or enjoy reading these articles about early childhood music development: The Importance of Music in Early Childhood by Lili M. Levinowitz Early Childhood Music Education in the New Millennium by Ken Guilmartin For more articles, visit the Music Together National Newsletter section of the national Music Together website.