When my son was 3 and 4 (he's now 6) we took (and re-took) a 5-session (about an hour and a half, once week) music class for preschoolers. It was great. My son and I both enjoyed it, and I believe he learned a bit from it. The teacher plays viola with the Tucson Symphony, and also teaches viola and violin using the Suzuki method. I believe that she modified the curriculum from another (the name of which I'm afraid I can't recall at the moment, but I'll try to retrieve it when I get home next week!) But, here are some of the things she did:

- singing and movement (like "Little Red Caboose" as a train, with the kids swapping the caboose role)
- listening to a tape of orchestra instruments (from the other curriculum), and looking at them live or in a picture and talking about families of instruments
- using rhythm instruments to tap out the rhythms of each child's full name
- a little bit of creative use of flash cards:
- with quarter and double eighth notes on them -- "Ta" and "Ti-Ti", singly, or in combination
- with various curves that the children guessed and learned to follow as rising and falling pitches (one had ascending dots, vocalised as "Do re me fa so" followed by a descending curve)
- doing "Do re me," etc. as being located on the body, from toes to hands in the air, and going thru the scale, then doing some other intervals

That's a sampling. I can't remember it all. In talking with the teacher, she felt that the rhythm work was the most important. She also did a really good job at keeping the class varied and within the attention span of the kids.

We made our own flash cards to play with at home, and have played a little with transferring that play to looking at jigs and reels in my tunebooks, to writing on staff-lined paper, and to playing with music transcription software on my computer.

So, sure, you can do lots of stuff at home, and ultimately the long-term exposure to your own love of music may be the most important thing to encourage your child, but if there's a pre-school oriented program available, go for it! If your child's enjoying it, it certainly can't hurt!

~ Becky temporarily in NJ