It has been lovely having the Easter holidays to spend with our families! One of the many benefits of running your own business is that we can pause our classes and choose our timetables to work around our children’s school holidays and make things work for our own individual needs.

Having said that, there is always so much going on at Musical StoryBox HQ! We have been busy prepping for our next term, advertising our classes and talking to lots of potential franchisees about our franchise opportunities. We have also been writing and releasing new songs on Spotify and YouTube. These songs are always a huge hit with our own children, (they hear them quite a lot in the process of writing and learning them!) and it’s amazing how often we hear our little ones singing the catchy bits! Our songs are inspired by each story that we read in our sessions, and are another way of developing understanding of the narrative and emotions of the characters in each story. Our songs are particularly popular when we go into nursery and school environments- they encourage the children to sing, have fun, and enjoy the story in a different way! Songs can help to make learning more inclusive- the repetition and rhythm in the songs make is easier for children to learn new words and improve pronunciation. Singing allows children to express themselves and provides an outlet for their feelings and can also be a great way to improve self- confidence and can become a tool to support mental wellbeing throughout life.

Singing is the instrument we are all born with and is a fundamental and easy way to develop musical understanding right from an early age. We quite naturally sing to our children as babies- it is soothing to them, provides comfort, and is their favourite thing to hear (honestly, that’s true even if you don’t sound quite like Taylor Swift!). It promotes bonding, develops communication, and is a universal language that can always convey something even before your child can understand the words.

This is why, in every one of our Musical StoryBox classes we encourage everybody to sing! Towards the end of our sessions, we choose a nursery rhyme that we hope everyone will know and we all sing along to our children. I always love this moment in our sessions as you can see the little ones’ focus shift from what we are doing at the front, to their grown up singing to them. Always a moment with lots of smiles!

If you want to run your own Musical StoryBox franchise, we want you to LOVE music and believe passionately in the benefits of it. The only instrument you need is your voice- and to be confident enough to use it!