SMART START PROGRAM
Curriculum By: The Royal Conservatory
Unlock your child’s potential with the Smart Start program, an innovative music curriculum designed by The Royal Conservatory for children ages 0-4. Taught by our certified Smart Start instructor, this program nurtures early development through music and movement, fostering creativity, social skills, and cognitive growth. With age-appropriate lessons that captivate young learners, Smart Start lays a strong foundation for lifelong learning and a love of music.
What Is Taught:
Age 0-12 Months
Children are naturally curious about music from a very early age, and the positive atmosphere of this class helps foster lifelong connections with music, builds strong parent-child emotional bonds, and provides a weekly forum for social interaction. The goal of this course is to expose you and your child to the basic concepts of music through sensory awareness and self-creation, with particular attention paid to beat, rhythm, and listening skills. The course is designed to foster basic cognitive skills through a musical framework, and to help parents and caregivers learn ways to interact with the child through music. A typical class begins with a greeting song, followed by gentle bouncing games, finger plays, movement, and many songs. The class concludes with lullabies or other songs for all to enjoy.
Age 1 to 2 Years
The active, music-based activities in this class help support your child’s cognitive, social, emotional, intellectual, and physical development, while facilitating parent-child bonding. Coordination, body control, and spatial awareness skills are accrued through games built around walking, dancing, and age-appropriate percussion instruments such as shakers, drums, and bells. As infants grow into toddlers, their musical abilities and needs develop as well. The activities in this class have been specifically designed to develop listening skills and improve memory through repetition, as well as to enhance cognitive skills. The toddler’s social skills are also developed through experiencing music in a group setting.
Age 2 to 3 years
Set your child on the right path by engaging them in music and movement-based play. This class focuses on developing gross motor function in toddlers by encouraging them to move their bodies in time to sounds and music. At age 2, children are beginning to develop more complex cognitive skills that will aid them later in life. These classes focus on cognitive skills relevant to music, such as sustaining attention, remembering songs, and recognizing perceptual cues. Children in these classes will learn how to apply these skills towards musical exploration, and gain greater musical independence through basic musical skills. At this age, parents or caregivers assist their child’s musical creativity and gain further skills for musical interaction with their child.
Age 3
In this class, children learn foundational musical skills such as tempo, meter, pitch, and volume together through educational, movement-based games and multi arts activities. By age 3, children are beginning to develop their singing voices, and as such, singing a wide range of songs is a vital component of the Smart Start curriculum. By age 3, children’s basic cognitive skills are in place. Smart Start is designed to work with these cognitive skills through activities such as recognizing musical patterns, focusing on the most important aspects of music, and understanding connections across artistic representations. Children work in musical and artistic collaborations designed to foster basic musical knowledge and spur on individual and group creativity.
Age 4
The teaching techniques employed in this course are designed to improve and support children’s socialization, fine motor skills, self-confidence, and attention span through instruction in fundamental musical concepts such as pitch, metre, rhythm, dynamic and tempo. Listening skills are developed through exposure to a wide array of musical elements through singing games, basic instruments, and guided listening. Singing, dancing, listening, instruments and multi-arts activities all factor into the Smart Start curriculum.
The graduate of the four-year old class has a good foundation to begin one-on-one instrumental keyboard lessons.
Meet Your Teacher: Linda Mannering
Linda has many years teaching music to all ages and loves the new Smart Start program tailored specifically for the youngest children. Classes are play-based music activities that develop cognitive skills such as attention, memory, creativity, and flexibility. Children, sing, play instruments, move, and learn music from around the world in different languages. A parent or caregiver must be present with children in the classes until age 3 1/2. The Smart Start program is the product of years of research and development by the Royal Conservatory of Music in Canada. Linda has received both onsite training and professional continuing education with RCM.