Lesson Ideas from around the Web
Musikgarten
The American Early Childhood Music organization, Musikgarten, is known for providing generous collections of wonderful folk and cultural music for use in specialized group classes for toddlers, preschoolers and primary grade children. While unfortunately not receiving as much attention as their secular curriculum, their founders, Audrey Sillick and Lorna Heyge, along with Catherine Mathia and Linda Robinson have also created a charming and traditional religious curriculum that beautifully incorporates the tenets of the organization (Montessori, Neuroscientific, Movement and Learning, Gordon and Tomatis) While their Lesson guides are too substantial to include here (and copywritten), select lessons have been extracted and are offered for inspiration.
For the Liturgical Church
While this project cannot hope to service all denominations, this lesson plan for the Orthodox church employs both traditional hymns and well loved classic children's songs.
Sacred Music of the African-American Church
With soul-wrenching emotion and secret hidden messages, the historical music of the African-American church is a must-expose for children of all ethnic backgrounds. This lesson plan features the song "This Little Light of Mine "and includes numerous opportunities to interact with both the historical meaning of the song and the modern social justice implications.
Orff and Kodaly in the Sacred Sphere
In this thesis excerpt by Hanna Powell (Indiana University) the admirable task of keeping hymnody alive among churched children is tackled employing the structures of Kodaly and Orff.