First Steps in Music Certification – Chicago, IL – Vandercook College

The First Steps in Music curriculum is designed to prepare children to become musical in by being Tuneful, Beatful, and Artful. First Steps in Music for Infants and Toddlers provides developmentally appropriate activities that are well suited for children under three years old with their caregivers. First Steps in Music for Preschool and Beyond provides activities for children as young as three, but appropriate for any aged child that needs to further develop their tuneful, beatful, and artful abilities. Folk songs and rhymes as well as classical music are the primary source materials that are used to develop their musical minds and abilities. Created by Dr. John Feierabend, this pedagogical approach contains everything you need to lead a music class for preschool and early elementary students, including: Echo Songs, Call-and-Response Songs, Simple Songs, SongTales, Action Songs, Circle Games, Beat Motion Activities, and more. Ample time will be spent on exploring complete lesson plans for a three-year curriculum. Participants who successfully complete this course will receive an official certificate of completion from the Feierabend Association for Music Education. All people are born with the potential to become musical. With inappropriate or limited musical experiences in the early years, children consistently lose their intuitions for thinking tunes, feeling rhythms, and responding to expressiveness in music. This lively course will provide a bridge from research to practice by demonstrating how a “natural” curriculum rich in repertoire of traditional children’s songs, rhymes, games, and dances can develop young children’s musical aptitude. The First Steps in Music curriculum is designed to prepare children to become musical in three ways: 1. Tuneful – to have tunes in their heads and learn how to coordinate their voices to those tunes. 2. Beatful – to feel the pulse of music and how that pulse is grouped in either 2s or 3s. 3. Artful – to be moved by music in the many ways music can elicit a feelingful response. A model of parents and children playing together in the years from birth to age 3 will be presented, as well as a curriculum for 3 – 8 year old children in classroom settings. Participants can receive certification in First Steps in Music by the Feierabend Association for Music Education.