A New Approach to Music Camp

Last year was our first time doing music camps. We had fun, learned a lot, and have a lot to present to you this summer!

The Concept: Child-centered summer music school for ages three to six

No Themes We've done away with themed camps. As music teachers, we believe that learning music is compelling and fun in itself. Without themes, our camps are "all killer, no filler." Not having to come up with twenty songs, activities, and crafts about dinosaurs or Beethoven means that the teachers can spend the entire camp session sharing their A-material regardless of how it relates to a predetermined theme. There will be plenty of fun activities to connect music-learning to kids' interests and larger musical ideas, from butterflies to bossa nova.

Buy Multi-Day Passes to Create Your Own Schedule We've allowed built-in prorating and eliminated the need for make-ups with our multi-day pass system. Choose the days you want, and pay for only those days, throughout the summer.

Priced and Scheduled Like School The camp runs from 9:00 A.M. until 1:00 P.M. on weekdays throught the entire summer, just like school. Our pricing is comparable, too: There is generous discount structure built in: more days you purchase, the deeper your discount.

The day passes purchased can be used by any sibling in a family of appropriate age. For example, a full five-day week goes from $175 to a competitive $140 per week (on all of the weeks!) with two kids attending for two weeks each. In addition, we offer a 10% early registration on top of that if you sign up by April 1. As if that weren't awesome enough, there is no registration fee. We hope to encourage families to enroll at Eclectic Music for multiple weeks.

Casey's Goal: Real Learning I have always been an active teacher in addition to serving as director of Eclectic Music. After cutting back a little during the fall of 2009, I felt drawn to focus my personal teaching efforts on our early childhood programs. I'm designing and teaching group classes and intensive private lesson programs for the under-six age group and loving it. It's not too surprising how much fun it is, but it's always amazing what these kids are capable of. My goal is for our summer school to be as enriching as it is fun, with real learning taking place.

Student-Centered Our summer program has been designed to be student-centered. This doesn't mean that the kids run the show - it means that they set the pace. It means that the kids will have time and space to explore a concept on their own, with one-on-one adult coaching if they want it. It means that we'll repeat a song or activity ten times in a row if we're all feeling it. It means that the kids will be able to choose between different activities, individually and collectively. Because there will be no more than ten kids per day (and two adults if there are more than seven), we'll be able to give lots of attention to each child.

Interested? Sign up or contact Casey at 404-734-4319 for more information, or read about pricing, rules and regs. And give us questions, suggestions, and feedback in the comments!