About C.L.A.P. - Music Classes for Young Children

C.L.A.P. with Claire is a music program that encourages children to create, learn and play. The parent/child interactive format allows children to develop a love of music while spending quality time with their parents. Infants, toddlers and preschoolers will practice problem solving skills, gross motor skills, fine motor skills and cooperation during a C.L.A.P. class. Our themes travel from Latin America to Japan, Egypt to New Orleans, so that C.L.A.P. is like a musical tour around the world. Each week we will focus on instruments and songs that help children and parents alike foster a love of music of all kinds, and have fun while doing it. Each class is 45 minutes long, and each theme takes 2 weeks to explore. Each session is 12 weeks long.

Mini Musical Maestros - parents and babies 6 months to 14 months old
Toddler Tunes - parents and toddlers 15 months to 2.5 years old
Around the World in Many Days - parents and preschoolers 2.5 years to 4 years old

Claire is a mother of two and a lover of music in all forms. She began singing before she could talk and the first time she played an upright piano at her neighbors house, it was love at first sight, sound and touch. Classically trained in piano for over 10 years, she took her love of music to the stage in a rhythm and blues band in Montreal until love and marriage brought her here to London. She found her true niche teaching music to children, and her goal is to foster a love of music in all children she meets!

Meet Jenny!

Jenny is very excited to be a part of C.L.A.P. with Claire and can't wait to be sharing her love of music with children and their parents this fall. Jenny's background includes vocal training as a teenager to instructing Play and Music Classes at Gymboree for 10 years. From there she taught Music and Art at the Performing Arts Preschool for 4 years. Her love of the theater and musicals runs in the family as her daughter Anna is an Original Kid, where Jenny is an active volunteer at the Original Kids Theater Company.

One of the things I've learned teaching music to young children is this: You can't force a child to love music. You can't force a child to engage in an activity and expect them to have fun. What you can do, however, is create an environment that a child can't HELP but have fun. With joy will come an instinctive love of music that will endure a lifetime. My job is to create that very environment. Your job is to participate with enthusiasm and joy! Young children learn best when they are modelling their parents, and that is why it is so important you throw yourself into each and every class with abandon. If you smile, they will. If you frown, they will. You are the mold, the muse, the inspiration for these little creatures.

I want you to walk away from a CLAP class humming a tune you never heard before, or humming a tune you thought you had forgotten. I want music to become a source of happiness for you and your child. I want your child to learn about music from all over the world, and love it. I created the CLAP with Claire curriculum with that in mind.