Success as a teacher of early childhood music often leads to a class for beginners with children from the previous term mixed in, until there are enough experienced students to set up an advanced class. Accommodating the various levels in one group can be challenging, as children with a semester or year of experience in your classes are ready for interactivity, while the beginners need immersion. There is, however, so much common ground, that we can adjust as need be to meet the musical needs of mixed levels in one class.

Immersion goes a long way with all levels. A toddler and a baby in the home are at very different levels of language development, yet both absorb at their own level from the speech in the environment. Similarly, the different experience levels of music development absorb at their own level. Each level needs immersion in at least 4 meters and 7 tonalities, so basic content is the same. You are likely the prime source of musical stimulation for most of these youngsters, so another semester of basic rhythm and tonal content can only enhance music learning. The musical mind at both levels will play with the rich rhythm and tonal content, making greater sense out of it—musical sense.

A way to offer immersion with more difficult rhythm content to accommodate the more advanced youngsters, while meeting the needs of beginners, might be to create Rhythm Activities in a meter consisting of one rhythm chant with just macro/micro beats and another with divisions, alternating between the two within the single activity, always coming back to macro/micro beats. This broadens immersion at both levels, while reinforcing the foundation for both. Also, Combined meter can be thrown in as a fifth meter for immersion. Tonal content is not as tied to difficulty levels, but with seven tonalities, there is always a new experience awaiting in tonality songs, and those in triple meter in any tonality will be more challenging to the musical mind.

Interactivity can be included for immersion in beginner groups. One Rhythm Activity might be devoted to Rhythm Dialogue as a class, with parents echoing rhythm patterns, immersing all in the back and forth exchange of Rhythm Dialogue with macro and micro beats. As with alternating rhythm chants of varying difficulty, patterns can similarly include the occasional more difficult pattern. One Tonal Activity might be devoted to a Resting Tone Activity for the full class, with the Resting Tone Squat used to literally draw everybody into the resting tone, immersing all in the interplay between tonal segments and resting tone. A bit of movement around the room with these activities allows the teacher to take the hand of the more developed children individually, moving together with the meter chants and listening for any individual child’s echoing of rhythm patterns, and doing the Resting Tone Squat with the developed children individually, listening for any individual child’s echoing of resting tone. The teacher circulates while delivering the activity, with just a warm smile or nod of the head to the individual more developed child to encourage any response of rhythm patterns or resting tone.

Play Songs are not about music learning, so they can be the same for both levels. Children after one semester or year would surely be ready for Art Songs. An occasional Art Song might be included in the mixed group, serving as immersion for the beginners, while alluring the musical minds of the more developed children.

Another option for you to consider in trying to meet the needs of two levels in one class is to offer the beginning class for all, and then keep the advanced children for another 10 minutes after class for two Rhythm Activities and two Tonal Activities. These add-on activities could engage the more experienced children interactively with one-on-one response, and could even include immersion in more difficult rhythm/tonal content and additional Art Songs or eventually Gem Songs. This desirable option provides for immersion in the full group context, and then interactivity in the small group context. These advanced children are ready for more, and love having more music activities.

Note that this posting about meeting the musical needs of two experience levels of children in one class has made no mention of ages of children, nor what appears to be advanced response by individual children. Rather, it refers to a mix of “experience levels.” Input is more important than output or age with young children, and “advanced response” of individual children is only as advanced as input is advanced.

You may at some point have enough developed children to offer a separate, advanced class, as well as one for beginners. You may then wind up with a beginning class and one with several levels in the advanced section. Moving all advanced children into rhythm and tonal syllables provides common ground for all, as they go through much the same immersion process with syllables. You can move back and forth from syllables to neutral syllables with both immersion and interactivity to meet the needs of each individual child. Ultimately, you may be able to offer a beginning class and three additional levels before the children reach kindergarten. It does take time, however, to develop a large enough following to have a sufficient number of returning children to offer so many levels of classes.