Since its beginning in the year 2000, Heart of the Child Music Education has been offering joyful, interactive group musical experiences to children and their caregivers in its hometown of Floyd. The FUN and developmentally appropriate classes foster a love of music while building foundational musical skills, safe connection, secure attachment, and a healthy community.

Kari’s welcoming attitude helps adults and children build a sense of community while they gather on the rug for fingerplays and lap bouncing games, play with rhythm instruments, jump, crawl, and swing, wave scarves to choreographed dances, and freeform jam with a menagerie of instruments. It feels so good to be in class, children don’t even notice that they are building the foundational skills for making music together for the rest of their lives.

HCME has been literally raising Floyd County children with its Social and Emotional Learning-based music program since it began. It still serves Floyd’s youngest members (birth to 5 years old) while watching its first students graduate from high school. One high school senior recently told Kari, “I don’t remember much about preschool, but I remember your music!”

Heart of the Child Music students consistently pursues music creation as they get older, fed by the love of music that HCME nurtures in them in their early years. They go on to participate in programs such as the Floyd JAMs Program and Music Lab Floyd, pursue private lessons, and form their own bands.