Music Curriculum Scope & Sequence

*The suggested ages below are not hard fast rules for using the program. They are just a suggested

sequence.

Prodigies PlaygroundThe c.

C

E BG

BV

D

re

do

e.D G

C

EG I

SupplementalMini-Series

PsP Melodies20 x 3 min Hand-Sign Lessons that focus on

Sight-Signing with Solege

Recorder Prodigies Percussion Prodigies

Recorder Lessons and songs using the notes G

A B C & D

World percussion, 3-4 part percussion pieces &

an introduction to the drum kit

COMING 2017 COMING 2018Kodaly Rhythm Tree6 x 8 min rhythm lessons

with Kodaly and Numerical Rhythmic

Excercises

P 1 2

Playtime Prodigies

Ages 1 - 3

Hi, I’m Mr. Rob, the host and creator of the Prodigies

Playground! Take a look around to discover the scope and sequence

we have planned for the Playground and also �nd answers

to the most frequntly asked questions about the curriculum!

Ages 3 - 5 Ages 6 - 8

PreschoolProdigies

Primary Prodigies

Level 1

3 4

Primary Prodigies

Level 2

Piano Prodigies

• Videos and story books that provide meaningful exposure to individual notes for toddlers

• A slow and friendly introduction to the program to familiarize your learners with the core elements of the Prodigies Playground

• Absolute pitch development through meaningful and memorable play with pitch

• Sing and hand sign with C Major Solfege

• Learn nursery rhymes using colors, numbers, letters and simple lyrics

• Call and Repsonse Rhythm Lessons, Simple Songs & Ear-Training Games

• Chords work with three major chords I IV V (C F & G)

• Workbooks contain simpli�ed sheet music & activities that teach handwriting, patterning, sequencing, basic math, literacy, colors, beginner compostion & more

• Continued pitch development in C Major with colorful but standard notation in the treble clef

• More detailed lessons, listening games, song analysis and performance tracks to accompany each song

• Exploration of chords I ii iii IV V vi & VIIb and both Major and minor scales

• Large formatted sheet music (color coded & black and white) in the treble clef for C Major instruments

• Workbook activites contain more vocabulary, math, composition, and music theory concepts

• Pitch development and in-depth exploration of the Sharps and Flats

• More di�cult melodies, progressions and reptoire with lower and higher notes

• Exploration of chords and scales in G Major, D Major, F Major and Bb Major

• Workbook activites contain more vocabulary, math, composition, and music theory concepts

• More modern popular music and themes to engage older learners

• Piano introduction and technique to help learners transition from bells to piano

• Substantial review of previously learned music to familiarize students with �ngering, hand positions, turns etc

• Greater emphasis on scales and excercises across all keys, as well as continued pitch development with all notes

• Workbooks designed to make beginner piano easy and fun, while still dealing with more advanced musical concepts covered in the previous levels

• Continued work with popular music and themes, as well as jazz standards and classical repetoire

Ages 9 - 1 1 Ages 12+

Releases Scheduled Throughout 2017

Coming 2018Coming 2018 Coming 2019

Key Concepts/Summary

Core Curriculum Outline

Key Concepts/Summary Key Concepts/Summary Key Concepts/Summary Key Concepts/Summary

Suggestions for Parents

NoteworthyFeatures and Fun

Facts

Video SpeedYou can adjust the

speed of the videos between 60% and 200% speed without a�ecting

the pitch, which is perfect for meeting your students where they are.

Meaningful Play with Pitch

Our program makes it very easy for kids to receive “meaningful exposure to pitch during the

critical years for auditory development,” which is the key

to unlocking the coveted musical skill of perfect pitch.

From Our Family to Yours

The Prodigies Playground is a small family company that is constantly working

to expand and improve our curriculum.

Bell ReplacementsIf you buy bells from us

and one ends up breaking, simply let us

know and we’ll send you a replacement ASAP.

Lifetime Members get free bells, otherwise

replacement bells cost $5

List of Songs & Lessons inside the Prodigies Playground

...and more coming every month!

• Hello C

• Short and Long Stars

• C and Shh

• Sweet Beets (Beet & Shh)

• Do Mi Sol Slide

• Chord Listening (5+ variations)

• Solfege Slide

• “What Note Is It?” (8+ variations)

• Low C, High C

• Left C, Right C

• Listening Game: Low v High

• Sweet Beets (Beet & Cherry)

• C Sock Slide

• C Chord Slide

• Pipes in C Major

• C & G, Best Friends

• The Wheels on the Bus

• C & G Chord Pumpkins

• Sweet Beets (Beet & Cherry part 2)

• The Chords on the Bus

• “Which Witch?” Listening Game

• Do Re Mi Warm-up

• Mary Had a Little Lamb

• Hot Cross Buns

• Merrily We Roll Along

• Sally The Camel

• London Bridge

• Mi Sol La Intro

• Doggie Doggie

• It's Raining, It's Pouring

• Sweet Beets (Beet & Avocado)

• Lucy Locket

• Acka Backa

• Bye Bye Baby Bunting

• Fa Sol La Warm Up

• Jingle Bells

• Ode to Joy

• Snow Day

• Dreidel

• We Wish You a Merry Christmas

• Auld Lang Syne

• F Chord Slide

• G Chord Slide

• The Lion Sleeps Tonight

• Sweet Beets (Beet, Cherry, Avocado & Shh)

• Blues In C Major

• Chord Watching III

• Chord Watching IV

• Solfege Hand Sign Review

• Hand Sign Compilation I

• Skidamarink

• Sweet Beets IV (Transition from Vegetables to Kodaly)

• Happy Birthday

• The Itsy Bitsy Spider

• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

• Old McDonald

• PsP Melodies 1-20

• Kodaly Rhythms 1-6

• Solfege Stars 1-6

• Row Your Boat

• Frere Jacques

• Hello Bells

• Sweet Beets (w/ numbers)

• Za Time (pizza rhythms)

• 5 Little Pumpkins

• Lightly Row

• Duet #1

• Rhythmic Dictation #1

Songs and Lessons in the Core Curriculum are accompanied by...

Plus, we’re working on introducing student tracking, teacher management and similar learning management features.

• Colorful and large-formatted sheet music for Boomwhackers, bells and Chromanotes Instruments

• Follow up pencil and paper activities to reinforce handwriting, literacy, sequencing, patterning, math and the music theory concepts presented in each lesson

• Parent/Teacher guidance page with objectives, follow-up activities and questions, tips for expanding the lessons and more

• Large Group Lesson Plans for teachers using the Prodigies Playground with multiple students (Pro and Lifetime memberships)

• Video annotations that suggest good moments to pause, repeat, ask questions and interact with your class

• Downloadable audios (mp3s included w/ all memberships) and even downloadable videos (mp4s included only with Prodigies Lifetime)

Inside our Members Only Facebook Group you will �nd...

• A community of teachers and parents sharing tips and strategies for using the Playground

• Member only updates, previews, & discounts

• A place to share your student’s successes no matter how big or how small

• Timely suggestions for holiday themed lesson ideas, relevant updates, tips and more

Parent/Teacher Training Videos to help you...

• Get acclimated to the Playground and to provide tips and tricks for running your �rst Prodigies class

• Understand the principles behind meaningful exposure to pitch, the Solfege hand signs and pitch training so that you can expand on the videos, lessons and activities

• Understand the principles behind teaching children rhythm so you can use the format, structure, graphics and ideas from our rhythm lessons to create your own rhythm teaching songs and games

• Understand two ways of changing the speed of the videos so that you can adjust the tempo of the videos to meet your learners’ pace (80% speed is a good start)

• Acclimate yourself to the materials, instruments and media setup we recommend for the Prodiges Playground

Instruments that work well with the Prodigies Playground

Suggestions for Preschool Teachers Suggestions for Elementary School Teachers

C Major Deskbells

Colorful, durable and easy to play, these deskbells sound great and will last you a long time. They are the primary instrument we use inside the Prodigies

Playground and they allow you to seperate and group individual notes to great e�ect.

Chromatic Expansion

The �rst expansion comes into play in Primary Prodigies Level 2, and it adds the notes C# D#

F# G# and A# to your musical play.

13 Note Resonator Bells

These Resonator Bells have a rich and warm tone one-octave lower than the Deskbells. As beautiful as they are, they require sticks (and more cooridination to play) and so we only

reccomend these for older or more advanced learners.

Treble/Bass Extensions

The second expansion also comes into play during Primary Prodigies Level 2, and it

expands the bell set with 3 lower and 4 higher notes.

C Major Boomwhackers

The Boomwhackers are an a�ordable alternative to the deskbells that are great for the music classroom; however, it’s harder to

play melodies with these as an individual person (you need to pick up, thwack, put

down, and then change tubes, which is slow and di�cult during faster melodies).

The Piano

The Piano is a great option for children 5 and up; however, our program uses 8 notes pretty consistently throughout the �rst 3 levels, and the videos and sheet music are

optimized for the bells, not for piano �ngerings, piano chords, etc. If you are an experienced piano player, you and your students can absolutely use the Playground, but

otherwise, we reccomend waiting until Piano Prodigies before approaching the piano.

D DCAFEC BG FE G A B

• With 3 year olds, you’ll spend a lot of time with the early materials from Preschool Prodigies, singing and hand-signing about only a few notes at a time. Ocassionally you’ll play with all 8 notes, but the Do Re Mi, Mi Sol La and other 1-3 note songs will really be the most fun and most successful with this age. With 3 year olds, you’ll also �nd that splitting up the bells among the kids, so that each kid only has 1 or 2, will help minimize the noise and distractions and also model and engage students in listening and turn-taking. Keep in mind that lots of repetition and meaningful exposure to pitch will have a massive long-term impact on your students’ sense of perfect pitch, so do not rush through the program.

• With 4 year olds, you’ll be ready to move through Preschool Prodigies no problem, and if you have enough bells for each student to have his or her own set, this is the ideal situation. Try completing 1-2 videos per week (assuming you have each group for 30-45 minutes), and of course, circle back to any favorites, any you want to rehearse for seasonal concerts and any that your students had a hard time with. Make use of the annotations, the lesson plans, the READ MORE and the workbook pages with each class to really make the most of the program. At this rate, you can complete the 8 chapters over 48 or so weeks. However, if you don’t have a ton of time with your group, you might even split the 8 chapters into two years, and use some of the mini-series and listening games as supplemental activities to make up any extra time. Like the 3 year olds, lots of repetition means more meaningful exposure to pitch, which will have a good long-term impact on your students’ sense of absolute pitch.

• The 5 year old classes will be much like the 4 year olds‘, so de�nitely read the 4s section above. More speci�c to 5 year olds, however, is that they will have more physical coordination for playing the bells with the videos at normal speed. At age 5, the critical window for auditory development begins to close, so if your students are starting at this age, focus as much as you can on the listening games and the overall memorization of the notes while that window is still open. This doesn’t mean rush through the whole program, it just means to try and spend a little bit of extra time with the listening games like “What Note Is It?” If your 5 year olds are in their second year of the program and only completed Chapters 1-4 last year, then their second year should focus on Chapters 5-8. After a year of practice, 5 year olds should be getting pretty good at naming notes just by listening to them it, so again, spend time with those listening games. If you �nd that you are well ahead and looking for more material, make sure you’ve spent time with the worksheets for each section and then move onto PsP Melodies, The Kodaly Rhythm Tree, the Performance Tracks (if you haven’t already) and even to the �rst chapter of Primary Prodigies.

• For parents completing the program at home, you only need one Playground account to get your whole family rolling! You can replay videos as often as you’d like, and depending on what membership you choose, you can print the worksheets as you need them.

• If you have more than one child using the program, investing in Prodigies Lifetime is generally the best move. That way you unlock all of the best parent/teacher resources, while also unlocking all of our content so that your di�erent-aged-kids can explore the di�erent levels and videos inside the program. This way, the program will grow with your kids and always be there for you to use. You won’t feel the rush to get through and you’ll also be getting an amazing deal on music lessons for your whole family (unlimited access to our program for all of your kids for the cost of about 10 private music lessons).

• Music lessons can be fun and engaging no matter your age, and if you have multiple children at di�erent ages, you’ll be pleasently surprised at how well the lessons work for both your younger kids and the older ones. We’ve had sutdents as young as 1 play along with siblings age 7-9, as it’s more about your prior experience with music and the practice of getting meaningful play with notes than it is about an age speci�c concept or experience.

• If you have more than one child, we reccomend making sure each has their own set of bells. It’s true that you can split up and share the bells (which is fun and e�ective in it’s own right), but many of the lessons in our program only feature one or two notes, and so it’s di�cult to make these lessons work without a second set. It’s also very important that you only use the notes that we suggest in each lesson, and don’t add aditional notes just because you want more bells to play with. The program revolves around the idea of meaningful play with pitch, and if you end up mixing and matching bells that don’t belong in a given lesson, your kids will incorrectly connect the sound of the bells they’re playing to the concepts in the lesson..

• Using Prodigies Lifetime, you can also download the videos (.mp4) and put them on a USB Stick, iPad or TV, which is sometimes more convenient and easier to use than logging into the Playground itself.

• Depending speci�cally on your child’s age, read the tips for Preschool and Elementary school students to the right.

• Where you want to start with your elementary school class is highly dependent on your students’ grade level and prior experience.

• If your 1st and 2nd graders have NOT completed Preschool Prodigies, then you will certainly �nd a ton of excellent material to use with them in Preschool Prodigies before you get into Primary Prodigies.

• Most of the material in the Preschool Prodigies videos will work perfectly for kids ages 4-7... it just really depends on how much musical experience they’ve had so far.

• The problem with using Preschool Prodigies with kids in 1st and 2nd grade is that you might end up hearing a lot of “we’re not in preschool” from your students. You can approach this however you want, but below are some suggestions:

• Start with Primary Prodigies Chapter 1, Section 1 and explain that you’ll be using “The Prodigies Playground” this year in your music classes. Then, you can either proceed through Primary Prodigies on pace, or if you want to dip into a Preschool Prodigies lesson, you can explain to your students that “this is a song that you would have learned in preschool if I was your music teacher.”

• Or you could say that “Mr. Rob hasn’t had a chance to add this song to Primary Prodigies, so we’re going to use a little bit of this video today...” and then you can even skip the �rst 8-10 seconds where the “Preschool” part of the title is shown.

• For your 3rd-5th graders, you’ll probably want to stick mostly with Primary Prodigies content, PsP Melodies, the Kodaly Rhythm Tree and maybe a couple of the later lessons from Preschool Prodigies. As we release more Primary Prodigies content, Recorder Prodigies and Percussion Prodigies, you’ll have tons of content to work with. Our program we initially designed and imagined for Preschool children, but thanks to the massive support from Elementary School teachers around the world, we are expanding our lesson to meet the needs of the primary school music classroom.