The Great Leap Academy Archives

I woke up today feeling amazing. I feel that I can accomplish anything today. Feeling this way may be due to the fact that I loved what I did yesterday, which was talk to people. Have you noticed that when you are exposed to something you love doing, it doesn’t feel like work?

In the same way, my daughter thinks it’s fun going to school. In school, they dance, sing, and play while learning the alphabet, number, etc. I have noticed that my daughter loves music. She loves singing. Recently, we went on a field trip to Manila Ocean Park, and she was singing in the bus the entire time! Because of this love for music, I decided to try out The Great Leap Academy once again. The last time I brought her to this place was when she was a baby, and we both had a great time.

Zeeka Eureka at The Great Leap Academy

In BGC, they have two branches: the one at Kensington Place and another one at Serendra. The Great Leap Academy’s number one goal is to provide a home-like environment and the kind of influences that encourage children of all ages to become creative, independent, responsible, well rounded, self-directed adults who can make decisions for themselves.

We arrived there for the 3:00 PM class. The minute we walked inside, Zeeka was greeted by two really enthusiastic teachers. We arrived just in time so we all went straight to the mat area — yours truly, Zeeka and yaya Ana. We started immediately and the first song was a welcome song. The teacher gave us a beat to follow by clapping. She sang it beautifully without any background music. It was so cool!

“In Music Together, not all song are with CD accompaniment. There’s a balance between acapella, instrument accompaniment and CD accompaniment. Also, not all songs are kiddy songs. It’s a mixture of different kinds of genre – jazz, broadway, world music, blues, pop etc. kase we wanted to create a musically rich environment for the child. We are exposing them to authentic music immersion,” said one of the TGLA representatives.

What was great was that the two teachers kept my daughter very engaged. It was so nice to see her follow everything that was said. There was also a time for dancing-your-heart-out! It was so funny seeing her dance!

What The Great Leap Academy uses is an International Program called Music Together. The Joy of Family Music® since 1987 Music Together is an internationally recognized early childhood music program for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and the adults who love them. These classes are mixed-age classes for children 0-5 years old—and. Grown-ups are actually encouraged to join, too!

When you enroll with The Great Leap Academy, it comes with a song book and the songs that you can take home and play at home. The entire curriculum is research based. 8 sessions (plus two bonus classes) is at Php 7700. It’s worth it!

It was really a great experience, not only for my daughter but also for me (and yaya… haha!). If you are looking for bonding activities that you can do with you child, I highly suggest that you enroll at The Great Leap Academy. Hope to see you, too!

Can I tell you a secret? During my teenage years (until now actually, so paging all talent managers!), I wanted to be an actress. I didn’t want to be the star though. My dream role was to be the best friend of the star. I always thought, why not right? I was a good dancer. I took ballet, tap and jazz lessons since the age of 3 and stopped when I was 12. I could blurt out a few lines; I didn’t know how to cry on cue though. But, I didn’t think I was a good enough singer. My mom enrolled me for singing classes with Ryan Cayabyab, at the time Smokey Mountain was a huge hit, but I only attended 5 classes I think and skipped the rest.

Even if I didn’t get to be an actress, I am thankful that my mom enrolled me and encouraged me to love dancing and singing. I believe that music really makes ones life more colorful! With Zeeka, I will really help her appreciate music, but I think she’s already very musically inclined. She loves dancing and singing! But I know that my role as a parent is to encourage and further enhance this skill.

I was really happy that we, as mom and daughter, got to experience going through the Music Together Class of The Great Leap Academy. Have you heard of this really wonderful program? They were actually part of the Work-at-Home Weekend Expo where they gave a demo class. For those who are interested to learn more about the Music Together program of The Great Leap Academy, I’d like to share our experience.

We went to their branch at Playschool International at the 2nd floor Kensington building. We were the first to arrive. In the class we attended, there were two other children with my daughter. According to their site, they usually keep the class small (6-12 children) so that they can give proper attention to each of them.

Each class is led by a fully trained, registered Music Together teacher. Ours was teacher Rylie and she was really nice and really very good. She really got the attention of the children even if the children were of different ages. The class started with her leading all of us in singing a welcome song. In the picture above, teacher Rylie was making firecracker sounds with hand movements.

We had a lot of dancing, where the parents and guardians where also encouraged to join. Zeeka and I loved the dancing part. We were used to dancing together. We would dance together at home in our sala, in our bedroom, in the kitchen — everywhere, so this was really fun for us! The children were also introduced to different kinds of musical instruments, instruments that I myself have not seen before. I hope Zeeka gets to learn how to play one. I don’t know how to play any, so I hope that she doesn’t take on after me. Haha!

I love that they class had a feeling of structured play (if that makes sense to you). I loved that it was fun and it really seemed like playtime for my daughter, but I love that all of these had a purpose of teaching the children to appreciate music. In their site, it says, “The relaxed, playful, non-performance-oriented classroom setting respects and supports the unique learning styles, developmental levels, and temperaments of all participants, creating a strong sense of community,” and I love that!

I also received two new CDs—one for home and one for on-the-go. It came with an illustrated songbook that’s filled with music-making ideas for spontaneous music play beyond the weekly classes.

I really enjoyed the class that we attended and we are really looking forward to attending more classes with The Great Leap Academy. I know that they have other classes available too like Might Math, Mighty Science and their Helene O’ Grady drama classes. You can join a free demo class by going to this link: FREE DEMO CLASS

We have great news from The Great Leap Academy and Manila Workshops! We are running a post-event giveaway for the Work-at-Home Weekend Expo which is open to everyone who’ll read this. They are looking for 7 winners who will receive these:

2 Winners who will each receive Php 1500 GC for the Music Together Program
2 Winners who will each receive Php 1500 GC for the Mighty Math Program
2 Winners who will each receive Php 1500 GC for the Mighty Science Program
1 Winner who will receive Php 1000 GC for the Helene O’ Grady Drama Academy Program

The giveaway will run from today to November 28, 2014. This is open to all the parents who have a Metro Manila address so that we can ship the GCs to your home. All you have to do is follow the steps in the Rafflecopter widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck! 🙂 Hope you win!