Educational Background/Training
Kari uses research-based trainings in Music Together®, Education Through Music®, and Orff Schulwerk to inform her music programming. Her studies in brain science (BS Psychology, Duke University,1986) attachment theory, positive discipline, and mindfulness help to inform her work teaching social and emotional learning.
About the Artist/Ensemble
Since the year 2000, Kari Thomas Kovick’s Heart of the Child Music Education has been delivering joyful, interactive, hands-on music to children 3 months old to 10 years old in local public and private settings. Kari’s mission is to deliver high quality music education infused with positive messages, offering experiences of authentic connection for her students’ social and emotional lives. Kari’s first professional children’s album It’s You I Like, produced by Ken Whiteley (Baby Beluga, 1980), was released in 2017 and won a Parent’s Choice Award. Heart of the Child Music Education has many fans in the thousands of students, parents, teachers, and administrators it has served, and Kari enjoys Rock-Star status when she runs into her 5 and under students in the local grocery store. She is now available to bring her Heart of the Child Music Education program to schools, daycares and libraries in VCA serviced areas.
Educational Program Description
Joy Jammers Program
A one-hour mixed age interactive class for babies, toddlers, preschoolers and their caregivers. Features seasonal songs with singing, lots of movement, scarves, balls, and rhythm instruments. Kari’s relaxed and engaging style sets everyone at ease, so that musical playtime is a positive bonding experience for everyone present. Ideal for community spaces and library settings, or daycare events when parents/families participate. For children ages birth to 6 years.
Baby Beats Program
An intimate one hour class for babies and their caregivers, with lots of opportunities for parents and babies to bond. It focuses on the amazing capacity of these young ones to grow smarter through music, consisting of lap bouncing games, massage rhymes, drum songs, shaker eggs, and rhythm instrument playtime. Circle dances and other movement songs allow babies to be held (or toddle!) while also being in the middle of the music. No music skill needed on part of adults. Kari will model everything you need to know, and she will keep it fun and relaxed, too. Ideal for community spaces and library settings, or daycare events when parents/families participate. For babies just born to just walking.
Teacher Trainings
Invite Kari to your center for a day, and let her show you how to lead a Baby Beats and/or Joy Jammers class for your own students. The three elements of her training include: 1.) demonstrating a class with real children; 2.) educating teachers on developmentally appropriate musical play and how it can be used to strengthen secure attachment; and 3.) offering support and advice as teachers try out the songs and methods in their own classrooms. One day or 3 day training options. Can be repeated several times over the course of a year or over several years to reinforce and refine the skills learned.
It’s YOU I Like! Social Emotional Learning through Music Program
Fun and engaging 30 or 45 minute music classes that teach children ages 4-10 how to recognize their feelings, honor them, and regulate their energy to calm their bodies and make good rational and heart-centered choices. With songs from her latest CD, plus puppets, a chime, posters of the brain, ideas about creating a peace corner and how to use feelings cans, Kari offers students and teachers many ways to build emotional intelligence into their classroom lives. She also demonstrates the power students and teachers have to create the optimal learning environment: a classroom where everyone feels welcome, accepted, and safe to be who they are, where limits are clear, mistakes are for learning, and fun is celebrated. In this classroom format, Kari is able to make personal connections with students, and answer their questions. An additional 1.5 hour workshop with all teachers and administrators involved is required, to educate further on classroom-specific SEL applications.
It’s YOU I Like! Social Emotional Learning through Music Library Concerts and School Assemblies
These offer the same material described above, in a format that can reach a large number of children/students at once. An additional 1.5 hour workshop with all teachers and administrators involved is required, to educate further on classroom-specific SEL applications.