Making Music Praying Twice for the Parish
Making Music Praying Twice in your parish is the beginning of an innovative movement in Family Life Ministry. It is time to get families back into parish life. Church must be more than a place of worship for the family. It can once again be the social, educational, extra-curricular center of family life. Making Music Praying Twice classes offer the content, quality and materials in Early Childhood Music education that your families are paying for in the secular community. But your class will offer much more than that. While your families become more musical and children grow and develop musically, prayer and the music of our Catholic culture become a part of family life, shaping and changing the Domestic Church through the power of prayer multiplied by the power of music.
What is a Making Music Praying Twice Class?
Making Music Praying Twice classes are fun, engaging, developmentally appropriate music experiences for children ages 0 – 5 with a parent or caregiver. These classes are developed specifically for the Catholic child by including faith in the music curriculum with traditional Catholic prayers, Gregorian Chant, Hymns, and prayerful Spirituals and folk songs. The course utilizes brain-growth studies and research commonly applied in popular, secular music and movement courses. We believe in a child’s natural ability to learn. This ability needs food and support. Mom and Dad’s enthusiasm and participation, as well as carefully selected and balanced music is the diet. With this formula every child can grow and succeed in music.
Through the age of eight, and at a greater pace before the age of three, a child’s brain synapses will actually grow to access and master material presented. This ability slows significantly after this time. We carefully choose our curriculum to “train the brain” to handle various meters, rhythms and tonalities. Often, young growing brains are able to master music skills that professional musicians find challenging.
Shinichi Suzuki, father of the famous Suzuki Violin Method, pointed out quite brilliantly that the early years are the best years for skills education. Have you ever tried, as an adult, to learn Japanese? Why are most Japanese five year olds more fluent in Japanese that you could become in 10 years or more of study? Beyond that, a five year old with regular exposure from birth can even speak 2 languages or more fluently. Their young, growing brains grow to the skills they need, while we must rely on established brain synapses and existing frames of reference.
CDs and special songbooks designed specifically for Making Music Praying Twice class participants come home each season, so the learning does not stop at the classroom door.
We apply these brain-growth principles to the sound music education, but children in this formative stage also benefit from the prayerful, faith-integrated format, shaping the way they will view faith and prayer for the rest of their lives. Additionally, young families, with newly Baptized babies, are in a stage of early formation setting the habits and patterns that will continue for years. Music and prayer become a part of daily life for the Making Music Praying Twice family and Parish becomes a vital part of their life outside the home. We are changing the nature and paths of these families and supporting faithful families in a more faith-integrated life than they thought was possible.
Our CDs feature natural, acoustic, but highly professional music designed to encourage participation of parents and children. Voices of men, women, teens and children help your child grow in receptive and discernment skills. The music of various cultures are represented traditionally alongside simple a cappella pieces and more complicated vocal and instrumental folk ensembles. All choices reflect a deep educational purpose, but also provide an enjoyable, charming listening experience for the whole family.
Making Music Praying Twice is unique in that it is “faith inclusive” for the Catholic child. This is not a religion class, but like other music programs, aims to present the music of a child’s culture in ways that impact her daily life. Unless faith is recognized as a part of a child’s culture and a part of a child’s daily life, the music program will fall short of it’s goal. By presenting music from a faith perspective, a child’s mind and body, as well as his soul, are respected and educated.
How does this work?
We have set up this program to reduce work and effort on the part of the parish. The biggest mistake a parish can make when trying to provide classes and activities for children and young families is to throw something together, try something out. Parents are spending their time and money on activities they value for their children. Your program can't be good enough. It has to be great. That is why we are here. We provide training for a teacher, materials, advertising tools, and support so you can rival and surpass any secular offerings in the community. But your parish runs and controls the program. The parish will control scheduling, provide insurance, employ the teacher on salary or free-lance basis, determine tuition and scholarships, and will reap the financial benefits.
The up-front investment for this program is minimal. Even if you are starting from scratch, your parish can get this program up and running for as little as $600. This includes licensing, teacher training, equipment and the teacher's manuals and CDs. The families pay tuition just like they already are for the secular classes they take. This tuition pays for their take-home materials. We have one stipulation: You must offer sibling discounts in support of the culture of life. The pastor may appoint a staff member or parishioner volunteer to run the program. The parish will collect and keep all proceeds from tuition and will pay the teacher for classes taught. Each class (7-12 students) garners an average of $550 per year after expenses such as teacher salary. Most parishes will begin by operating 2-3 classes. The classes pay for themselves within a year or two and even garner a small income for the parish.
What is the Curriculum like?
You can see in the chart below, that the seasons of the Curriculum revolve around the Liturgical Year. Each Liturgical Season has its own curriculum of specially chosen songs and activities designed to be a balanced curriculum as a stand-alone course and to work harmoniously with the other courses into a year-long Curriculum that is repeated throughout a child's early years.
This Curriculum is based predominantly on the work of music education innovator and researcher, Edwin Gordon. Other influences include Kodalay, Orff, Suzuki, Maria Montessori, and Brain-Growth Education researchers and specialists, Renate and Geoffrey Caine. This curriculum is designed to enhance brain-growth in the early formative years so that just as a child best learns to speak her mother-tongue in the earliest years, she learns her most basic music skills in a deeply ingrained, natural way. We guide parents in creating more musical and prayerful home environments to foster this development. Every song in the curriculum is there for a reason so that the growing brain is challenged by a careful balance of tonalities, meters, music styles, voices, movement and dance activities, and instruments and all of this is balanced with an eye on faithful Catholic content.
Contact us NOW to start a program in your parish! For the Catholic Preschool
