Imagine a joyful gathering of family and friends, from the tiniest infants to the oldest great grandparents. Add singing, dancing, jamming and musical play for 45 minutes each week and you’ll get an idea of what Rhythm Tree family classes are like.

At The Rhythm Tree, we believe that learning music is our children’s birthright and that they learn best in a rich, pressure free, playful musical environment. Each week in our Rhythm Tree Family classes, you’ll find young children (babies, toddlers and kinder aged kids) parents, carers and grandparents singing, dancing, playing with instruments and props and connecting through a wide and varied range of styles of music from different parts of the world. Most importantly, you will be equipped with the tools and given the inspiration to continue with music making at home.

Classes with children of different ages have intellectual and social benefits for both younger and older children. In fact, it’s the learning environment recommended by many early childhood researchers. Older children learn empathy and awareness of others, while developing leadership qualities and gaining self-confidence. Younger children learn by imitating the older ones and often show more complex behaviours earlier than usual. Even babies benefit by being in an environment that gives them lots of opportunities to observe the behaviour of children of varying ages. Plus, it allows everyone—siblings, parents, grandparents, caregivers—to share in the musical experience together!

You are your child’s most important music teacher right now! Your young child learns about their world and what’s important by watching and listening to the grownups they love. Setting an example as an enthusiastic participator in music activities is the best thing you can do to help set your child on the road to a lifelong love of music. Believe it or not, you don’t need to have music skills—you just need a desire to play and have fun with your child! Our teachers are specially trained to create a relaxed and safe atmosphere so you can happily join in, experiment, or even get silly—and feel closer to your child while doing so.

So… we invite you to sing like no one’s listening and dance like no one’s watching! It’s the best gift that you can give your child.

We encourage you to keep the 45 minutes musical. Children find it difficult to block out adult conversation – especially if it’s coming from their main caregiver. They hear so much talk during the day and work so hard on language development – let’s immerse them in a rich, musical environment and nurture their musical growth.

If you need to say something to your child – see if you can sing it to them.

We have good news on that front! It doesn’t matter how well you sing or dance, it only matters that you do it. Your children don’t learn how to sing from you, they learn to sing. So, if you have fun playing with music, your child will learn to love it too. It’s really that simple! Your role is essential regardless of your musical ability!

Absolutely! In each class we strive to create a musically rich, developmentally appropriate environment where the whole family can enjoy music and nurture skills at the level right for each child. Mixed-age classes also provide a rich learning environment because children of different ages thrive when they interact with each other.