Goodnight Moon Lullabye Song (listen for FREE!)

Renowned Grammy-award winning composer and conductor, Eric Whitacre, has created a beautiful rendition of the childhood storybook classic “Goodnight Moon” into a Phantom Of The Opera style lullaby. The music breathes of elegance and sophistication while enchanting the listener with an uncluttered melody line and a robust string accompaniment. This song is so much better than the common children's music on the market today. As a private music instructor and having been trained in the Music Together early childhood music curriculum and theories, I tell you from the voice of research that it is very important for your child's musical development to listen to music in a variety of styles, keys, modes, time signatures, etc.. This song meets a lot of criteria for stimulating positive brain activity and musical development and I would definitely turn up the computer and let this song play in the background of your day. :)

Take a listen at http://heargoodnightmoon.com to stream it for free!

(I received no compensation or even acknowledgement for this review and the opinion is certainly all mine)

I'm going to be a Music Together teacher!

Tomorrow morning at 9am, I start training to be certified as a Music Together teacher. I'm really excited about this as it will bring early childhood music education classes to an area that doesn't have them, new income possibilities for my family, and I got a scholarship to attend the training on top of it which made it all possible (thanks, Music Together scholarship program!). My daughter is just as excited as I am, daily talking about how she can't wait to help mommy when I'm teaching the classes after I'm trained. :) 

She was, in fact, one of the main reasons I chose Music Together over the other early ed music programs out there. After a lot of research, I had narrowed my decision down to Kindermusik or Music Together. One thing that I really liked about Music Together was that it's family oriented and thus more accessible for parents with multiple children, not to mention more affordable to them. My 2-year-old daughter verified this when I played both a Kindermusik album and a Music Together sample album for her...and we have been listening to the "Hello Song" from Music Together ever since! Yes, I really do think we know every word of every song on their "Family Favorites" album since it's the staple music in our minivan (don't knock the minivan, I have a story about it that I'll share sometime).

From their website:

Music Together is an internationally recognized early childhood music and movement program for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and the adults who love them. First offered to the public in 1987, it pioneered the concept of a research-based, developmentally appropriate early childhood music curriculum that strongly emphasizes and facilitates adult involvement. 

Music Together classes are based on the recognition that all children are musical. All children can learn to sing in tune, keep a beat, and participate with confidence in the music of our culture, provided that their early environment supports such learning.

The training will last three days (whew!), then I'll drive straight to work for a 28-hour-minimum shift (whew! again). Yes, I will probably go crazy missing my little people, but I couldn't let my daughter down by not being able to teach these classes that she's so excited about, right?

What are your thoughts on music programs like Music Together?