Online Courses Information

Online Courses Information

Mini Maestros Online Courses offer you and your young child a wealth of opportunities for learning, discovery, development and fun together.

Each week’s activities are specifically chosen and practised to teach you how to nurture aspects of your child’s development, such as language acquisition, speech development, auditory processing, motor skills, focusing and steady beat.

You will both experiment with percussion instruments and practise playing with the music in stop and start activities. Dances and action songs performed together will reinforce a sense of steady beat and will expose the children to a variety of musical styles. Lap plays, rhymes and puppet activities will develop children’s language, listening and focusing skills, and provide valuable opportunities for bonding and fun together.

You are your child’s best educator and your voice is your child’s favourite voice in the world! Our Online Courses will teach you how to confidently and actively engage with your young toddler through singing and speech, instrument playing, and dance and movement to nurture their learning in these vitally important early years.

Our Online Courses include access to online learning materials to help you make the class activities part of daily life for you and your child.

Here are just 5 benefits of our Online Courses:

  1. They create a happy, warm and engaging space that provide moments of joy and learning for you and your child.
  2. They are designed for a parent or other carer and child to experience together, giving you valuable, focused bonding time.
  3. Our online courses are not a TV show to sit passively in front of. They require active participation from both child and adult, and are specifically designed to give parents or other carers knowledge and confidence on how to extend and enjoy our activities beyond the lesson time.
  4. Unlike a regular class, you can attend each weekly online lesson again and again.
  5. Our Online Courses allow you to continue to support your child’s development and your child will continue to achieve his or her learning milestones.
Try your first online lesson free!

Want to purchase an Online Course? Purchase one here.  

An Online Course is very similar to our in-person classes except that you are in the comfort of your own home. Provided you have assembled the home-sourced instruments we suggest for each lesson, each parent or carer and child will be able to participate in the activities just as they normally would.  Just like our normal classes, our Online Courses create an education time and space for parent or carer and child. Like our regular classes and unlike TV programs, our online courses are designed for a parent or carer and child to participate in together and they will give both parent or carer and child the knowledge and confidence to extend and enjoy the activities beyond the screen.

New customers, including those living outside Australia, can purchase an Online Course directly from our Online School.

We recommend existing customers who have attended local classes contact their local Maestro to purchase an Online Course and keep up to date with local events or you can purchase directly from our Online School.

The email address you enter upon purchase will be used to create your account. You will be prompted to create a password for your account and will be sent an email asking you to confirm your account. Once confirmed you’ll be able to log into our school with your new account and access your new course and the lessons as they are made available week by week.  If you already have an account with teachable.com, you’ll have to enter your email address and click Continue.

You will be emailed a link to log in to our Online School. Log in requires the email address associated with your enrolment and a password which we will provide.  All lessons can be accessed in our Online School using that log on and are made available week by week during the teaching term.

If you have received the Online Course as part of your enrolment in an in-person class, then you will receive 10, 5 or 3 lessons depending on the number of in-person classes you have enrolled for. (10 – 6 weeks in-person receive 10 weeks Online, 5 -4 weeks in-person receive 5 weeks Online and 3-1 weeks in-person receive 3 weeks Online.)

If you have purchased an Online Course direct from our Online school then the number of weeks will be stated in the course description prior to purchase.

The lessons can be watched at any time that suits after they have been released at the beginning of each week during the teaching term.  If you purchase an Online Course part way through the term, all lessons up to the time of purchase will immediately be released.

All age groups will require:

  • A shaking instrument (DIY examples include a jar or container filled with rice or buttons)
  • A tapping instrument (DIY examples include two wooden spoons to tap together (claves substitute) or an upside down pot or plastic container that you can tap with a wooden spoon (drum substitute))
  • A small floaty piece of material for children to shake, wave and play peekaboo with.

Looking for inspiration for homemade instruments? Click here. Or buy some instruments from our shop ahead of time.

Additional props and materials for each lesson will be listed in our online school and will always be based on common items that can be found in the home.

As many times as you like.   Your child may need time and repetition to adjust the the online lesson environment.  You don’t need to do the whole lesson start to finish in one go.  You can do a little bit, pause and then go back to it.   The lesson contain fantastic material for you as carer to learn at home so you may prefer to watch some of the activities yourself and then do them with your child separately, away from the screen.  You can also enjoy the lesson as a whole family, with siblings (and grandparents!) participating alongside your child.

You can watch your Online Course on any device that has internet access, eg mobile phone, tablet or computer. See below for what you need to be able to watch it on your TV.

Our online school can be accessed on a computer, tablet or phone.

Want to step it up and have it on your TV? It’s really simple. All you need is an adapter cable from your phone to your TV.

For iPhones or iPads: get a Lightning to HDMI adapter. These can be purchased from electronics retailers such as JB Hi-FI or online (eg eBay and Kogan). Simply plug it into your phone, plug an HDMI cable from your TV into the adaptor and away you go. It’s best to have your charger plugged into the adapter too. Using this method also means you won’t have image delays (as can happen with mirroring) or the need to type in a long URL. These cables are fantastic; basically, whatever is on your phone screen appears on your TV. As well as watching our online classes you can look at all your personal photos and videos on your phone directly on your TV. Even your Facebook feed – amazing!

For Android phones – the various Android brand phones are all different, but an adaptor from phone to HDMI, and thus to your TV, is available for all and the most robust option. Just ask your retailer which is appropriate for your phone. You can also use Smart View and mirror your screen, but this can create image delays depending on modems and internet speed, so the recommendation is to use an HDMI phone adaptor and HDMI cable.

For laptop/computer – connect it directly to your TV with a HDMI cable. If it is an older device you may need an adapter specific for your device. For this, you will need to do your own research as devices vary.

There are other ways to stream from devices to TV’s but they are complicated and potentially frustrating if you are not familiar with Chromecast, Apple Play etc. The simplest approach is to get an HDMI adaptor for your phone and you’ll never look back. It’s quite amazing to have all the content on your phone available on your TV screen!