In the Kindermusik International world, we believe that the parent—not the classroom educator—is the child’s first and most important teacher. More, we believe that the home environment—not the classroom—is the best place for a child to learn.

If you as parent or caregiver are not comfortable using (or are choosing to not use) the materials at home, then your child has lost his or her most important teacher and most important classroom. The “time spent” at Kindermusik is reduced to 45 minutes per week, and the class is devalued.

With these principles in mind, here are some thoughts for you to consider:

Music should not be limited to 45 minutes per week – it could be 45 minutes a day! The activities we practice together in class are designed to give you ideas to make playtime at home more purposeful. As Kindermusik becomes integrated into your family’s daily life, your investment into the Kindermusik class and the home materials materials becomes spread over many, many hours during the week, decreasing the “cost per hour spent” and increasing the value of your investment.

That’s the honest truth. Everything above this line is based on a training article I just read in my Kindermusik training tome. I’ve changed it around to reflect my style of wording and to address it to parents and caregivers directly, because it was, of course, addressed to Kindermusik educators. But it addressed a topic that’s been burning in me as I’ve gone through my second round of Kindermusik educator training (my first was in 1999), which is the value of Kindermusik. I only got halfway through the article and knew I had to write to my parents and caregivers about it immediately.