Kids 'R' Kids Learning Academies®, a national early childhood education franchise with three decades of experience, has adopted and will make available to its franchisees across the U.S., a revolutionary music curriculum called ColorSoundation™. This unique teaching system was developed by noted Los Angeles-based musician and teacher Shiho Yamamoto. Yamamoto designed ColorSoundation to teach very young children the fundamentals of music through the integration and interplay of colors with sounds.
Yamamoto, a renowned musician originally from Japan, is also the Founder of the West Los Angeles, CA-based Conservatory of Performing Arts – a school which specializes in offering progressive academic music lessons to a diverse range of young students living in Southern California. She developed ColorSoundation in 2005 as a process, which blends a combination of singing, playing, and ear training, along with the illustrated activities of seven colorful, original animated characters, and the integration of color-coded stickers and instructional booklets, to capture and maintain the interest of young children.
"We saw very positive testimonials from the owners of several of our franchise school locations and their parents during our pilot program, and we learned that Color-Soundation was very successful. We have been searching for a strong music curriculum to offer young students in all of our schools and felt that ColorSoundation was a natural fit," said Bob Kirschner, COO of Kids 'R' Kids Learning Academies. "With many public schools eliminating music and arts programs in recent years, we know that parents want their children to be exposed to music, and the ColorSoundation program fills that void. The methodology behind it blends perfectly with our curriculum, which focuses on increasing the 'brain waves' of young children through educational activities to develop their brain functions."
Yamamoto added, "We are thrilled to have been endorsed and embraced by the Kids 'R' Kids Learning Academies! Children reach a greater understanding of music by focusing first on the development of the 'ear' and singing voice, and then by concentrating on rhythm and musical notation. Our ColorSoundation process offers lessons which are broken into small steps, and interactive games, so as to not overwhelm children with too much information at once. These lessons allow students to absorb and grasp the fundamentals of music through voice, handbells, and basic percussion instruments, in efforts to ultimately interest them in choosing an instrument to play when they get older."
Kids 'R' Kids will begin to market and promote this special music program to all of its 160 franchise schools across the country during the coming weeks and months ahead. Paul and Tammy Huff, owners of two Kids 'R' Kids preschools located in West Frisco, Texas, have been longtime proponents of the ColorSoundation teaching method, which they feature at their schools.
"ColorSoundation is the only program we've seen in 10 years of searching that can inspire and engage young children to enjoy learning music so early in their lives," said the Huffs. "When we launched our schools, we were concerned initially that we needed to get children between the ages of 3 and 5 interested in math and science, to give them a solid foundation within our curriculum. The 180 children in our schools who are taught ColorSoundation have fully embraced the process, and have a great time in class. We are convinced that, as they get older, they will look more favorably to learning not only music, but also science and math as a result of this early exposure to pitch, musical notation, and the reproduction of various sounds.",
About Kids 'R' Kids Learning Academies
Headquartered in the North Atlanta suburb of Duluth, Ga., Kids 'R' Kids Learning Academies provide a secure, nurturing, and educational environment for children ages six weeks – 12 years to bloom into responsible, considerate, and contributing members of society. With nearly 160 learning academies in 16 states, Kids 'R' Kids International® is a family-owned and operated organization that ranks in the top 10 nationwide for franchised early childhood education centers (www.kidsrkids.com).
About ColorSoundation™
Developed by musician Shiho Yamamoto in 2005, ColorSoundation is a groundbreaking method of early music instruction based on the relationships between colors, musical notes and tones. This technique offers a solid, structured and nurturing environment for children ages 3-8 to stimulate and engage them with an enjoyable learning experience through which they learn music literacy, rhythm and pitch perception. Students of this process develop both social and personal skills through a multitude of engaging physical exercise, group activities and individual assignments. See: http://www.colorsoundation.com/
