Our Curriculum

The Little Melodies Early Learning curriculum is inspired by the Reggio Emilia and Music Together. We are the only school-based Music Together provider in the Metro Detroit area, offering daily sessions that are facilitated by an expertly trained music specialist with more than 10 years of experience leading Music Together sessions.

• Reggio Emilia is a child-centered philosophy that views children as strong, capable, and naturally curious learners. It is grounded in the belief that children are not empty vessels waiting to be filled, but competent individuals who actively build their own understanding of the world. A central part of this approach is the “Hundred Languages of Children,” which recognizes that children express their thinking in many ways, including art, music, movement, building, storytelling, and dramatic play. These creative forms of expression allow children to explore ideas deeply and make meaning through hands-on experiences. The environment itself is considered the “third teacher,” with classrooms thoughtfully designed to be beautiful, organized, and filled with engaging materials that inspire curiosity, independence, and collaboration.

• Music Together is a 36 year old, research-based learning methodology that is versatile and rooted in developmentally appropriate practices that are well suited to early childhood programs and curricula. Music Together views children as highly competent co-creators of their own learning, capable humans and innovators of new possibilities, naturally joyful and expressive, open to suggestions, emulators of all that surrounds them, with the power to significantly influence others and the adults in their lives.

According to research in music education and child development, children who experience Music Together programming have shown gains in cognitive, physical, language, social, and emotional development, reinforcing that “Music Learning Supports All Learning.” As a part of the Music Together in-school community, Little Melodies families will receive award-winning Music Together® recordings, which can be downloaded/streamed using the Hello Everybody app. Pitched in just the right range for children’s voices, each collection is a mix of original songs and traditional tunes in a variety of genres, styles, and cultures, including folk, blues, classical, rock, jazz, and world music. The curriculum also includes music and songbooks for families to take home, developmentally appropriate activities to be used in class, and online resources to support teaching and program implementation.

Another unique feature of our curriculum is the way we use daily experiences with food as modern, culinary learning tools through which students study history, biology, economics, art, and chemistry. Through intentional, chef-led food and nutrition education, Little Melodies students explore agriculture, colors, counting, measuring, senses, food groups, meal preparation, celebration of ethnic diversity, etiquette and table setting by tracing the origins of their favorite foods. By including culinary education projects, we invite the children to see the act and process of eating as a learning opportunity and we even sing about it!