It was a long time coming, but last year Lynn Nevens finally launched her dream job, a music class for children called Destin Kid’s Musik Garten. Nevens taught music in some form or another in a classroom setting for over 15 years but said it was her dream to retire to Destin and open her own studio for kids.
“I’d kind of given up on the dream,” Lynn said. “I was actually about to donate all of my music curriculum to a local school, but one day I was talking to my pastor’s wife, and she asked me if I would like to start it right in our church building.”
Destin Kid’s Musik Garten, hosted at Safe Harbor Presbyterian Church on Airport Road, offers classes for children 15-months to five years old with age-appropriate activities, games, stories, poems, dancing and of course lots of music.
“I believe that all children have an aptitude towards music,” Lynn said. “You put music on with children in the room and immediately you are going to get some type of response. If the music is upbeat and lively, you will have children wanting to sing and wanting to move along with the music.”
Lynn explained that the Musik Garten curriculum encourages music introduction and awareness from birth as a means for infants to begin identifying with different sounds.
“It’s never too early to train music with babies,” Lynn said. “As soon as their ears start developing in the womb, babies can pick up on patterns, sounds and movements in the music.”
Musik Garten is unique to other music programs as the curriculum is all-inclusive with the cost of the initial class so there are no expensive add-ons or surprise costs. Parent and guardian involvement is also a big part of Musik Garten, and as the child grows and becomes more independent, the adult role slowly lessens.
“The parents only come into class for the last 15 minutes when they get into the older age group,” Lynn said. “At this stage, the children are learning all the different instruments, the dynamics of an orchestra, what notes look like and pre-reading and pre-writing music. We are getting them ready to read and write music.”
Musik Garten curricula also follows the flow of the seasons, incorporating elements of nature such as animal sounds, plant movements and even butterfly cycles into the lessons. Lynn explained that as music is a universal language of the world, so are the rhythm and patterns of nature.
“Nature is very involved in our lessons,” Lynn said. “Children respond well to the natural world around them so in class, we talk about hearing different bird calls and I encourage the children to listen to birds in their backyards and try to identify the different sounds.”
Lynn said that Musik Garten does have curriculum for infant classes as well as group piano classes, both she will consider adding if the demand arises. She explained that music is the first language many children understand, as they hear sounds in the womb, so every age child has a place in music training.
“I love seeing the children connect to the music,” Lynn said. “I really enjoy seeing them fall in love with music and beginning the development of the love of music because there is so much beautiful music out there.”
Destin Kid's Musik Garten runs from August to May. Enrollments are open now. Classes meet weekly at 801 Airport Road in Destin.
Families are welcome to participate in one free discovery class. Find out more online at www.makingmusik.com/DestinKids/ or call 847-331-2891.
