Dear Naomi,
I just wanted to drop a quick note to say thank you for the phone session Sunday on developing my daughter’s interest in music. Your tone and attitude were so reassuring, and I’m already really looking forward to the hours of fun we’ll have together. We’ve already tried the animals game already – it’s fantastic and I wonder why something similar didn’t occur to me earlier, but I often find that major discoveries seem just like that – almost too good to be true!
Thank you and best wishes,

– Helen Chang,Vienna, Austria

Naomi Aldort has been offering guidance for parents of musical children and all children for forty years. As a former piano and voice teacher (currently teaching select few students), Aldort has offered teachers’ workshops on developing musical freedom of expression in children. Two of her sons are professional musicians, one a pianist/composer living in Seattle and the other a cellist, member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

In a phone/Skype session, Naomi will share with you the games that will nurture and develop your child’s musical talent. Naomi’s approach leaves the child in charge, self-directed, self-initiating and, most importantly, loving music. A real piano at home is a must.

In the session you will learn to engage your child in music games, custom made for her/his natural inclinations and delight. These games will effortlessly and joyfully teach him/her all the basic musical skills, including: creative musical expression, musical improvisation, rhythms, notes reading, musical dynamics: forte, piano…, musical tempos: largo, adagio, allegro, presto… playing music by ear, singing while playing, solfège, ear training, learning to listen, how to attend concert joyfully, enjoying high quality (mostly classical) concerts and CDs, recognizing musical instruments, and mostly: loving music and feeling free to express oneself on musical instruments and in singing.

Your child will ask you to play these games again and again, or will play on her own with siblings and friends. You can start using these games with toddlers or with mature children and even adults. You do not need to be musically educated or skilled. You will learn with your child. It is wonderful for home-schooling but just as good with children who go to school.

Watch Lennon Aldort at age 3 playing Bach by ear

To make an appointment you can pay bellow, or, if you prefer, you can Contact Naomi first or call 360 376-3777 with any questions you may have. Naomi is prompt in her response. If you do not receive a response within a day or two, please write or call again to be sure that your message reached Naomi.

Please do not send an email with your story. After Naomi receives your payment, an email will be sent to you with a form to fill out. You will have a space in that form to offer a brief introduction of your specific needs or issues.

The following book is not the Natural Young Musician™ Program that Naomi teaches in private sessions. The creative games program is ONLY available in PRIVATE SESSIONS The piano book is a follow up for children who are ready to master playing from notes. It teaches to read music and play from notes on the piano.

Purchase Book

PAYING BY CHECK

Please mail your check to: Naomi Aldort, P.O. Box 1719, Eastsound, WA 98245. Then use the contact page to contact Naomi Aldort and notify her that you are sending in a check.

Family Retreat Parenting Guiding Sessions Workshops Biography Testimonials Book

HOMESCHOOLING

 Homeschooling • Unschooling • Democratic School • Children’s Play • Child’s Emotions • Talking to Kids about and Sex • Tiger Mother • Learning to Read • Harm of Praise • Harm of Rewards • Self-Directed Learning • Child’s Social Skills • Child’s Talents • Child’s Self-Esteem • Learning Math and much more

 Homeschooling articles:

• The Advantages of Learning to Read Later

• Joining your child’s activities can stifle her creativity and confidence 

• And They Played All Day

• Guidance on nurturing your child's musical talent

• Video-Interview about Self-directed Education and Homeschooling

More articles about homeschooling...

UNSCHOOLING WEBCLASS VIDEO:

Lecture and question & answers

Watch 2 hours webclass video about unschooling. In the “deep“ classes Naomi speaks briefly and works with individual parents on their questions, doing deep inquiry designed to free the self from limiting thoughts about the particular issues.

• Naomi Aldort raised her three sons without schooling. All three graduated universities with excellence.

• She has been a keynote speaker at many homeschooling and unschooling conferences world wide, including AERO, Rethinking Education, Canada homeschooling organization, as well as groups in Europe and Australia. Her articles and advice columns about homeschooling, music, self-directed learning and parenting have been published in magazines internationally.

• Naomi offers advice on unschooling and homeschooling as well as on alternative schools options and all parenting issues. Her guidance is flexible and accommodating family and children’s special situations and needs. She also recommends alternative schools when needed, the democratic schools, Reggio Emilia and other schools that respect the child’s inner guide.

HOMESCHOOLING SET of 7 CDs:

Trusting Our Children Trusting Ourselves

(Please note, this CD set is not the same as the book, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves)

This comprehensive, indispensable 7 CD set contains six keynotes given by Naomi Aldort at the unschooling/homeschooling conference, Rethinking Education in Dallas, Texas. It covers practically all the major parenting and self-directed learning issues in one amazing package.

Disc 1: Rethinking Education: Debunking common assumptions about child development.

Disc 2: Part 1 - Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves Part I: Bring peace and unconditional love into your relationship with your children by understanding your own reaction as different from your child’s needs.

Disc 2: Part 2 - Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves Part II.

Disc 3: Debunking Praise: Find out why you really praise and at what price.

Disc 4: Children’s Behavior and Emotions: Includes many questions from audience members, and Aldort’s skillful guidance about understanding children so they can be the best of themselves.

Disc 5: Self Directed Learning: Why children learn best when they follow their own path, timetable and direction, and how to support them toward their own fulfillment.

Disc 6: Equality, Respect and Freedom for Children: From chores to bed time and dinner; how to live with children in a way that they care and respond, not out of fear, but out of joy and love, of their own free will.

Education quotes:

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” 
- Albert Einstein

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.” 
- Albert Einstein

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” 

- Albert Einstein

“People with great passions, people who accomplish great deeds, people who possess strong feelings, even people with great minds and a strong personality, rarely come out of good little boys and girls.”    

– Lev Vygotsky

“I loathed every day and regret every day I spent in school.”        

– Woody Allen

“Pedagogy is a way to get someone to learn something they don't want to learn. That's what pedagogy is about. It's a crooked idea, and basically, if you're a teacher, you know you're spending time looking for tricks: How can we get these little people who aren't interested in the subject, because they didn't choose to be there themselves? How can we make them do it? how to force it on them and still make it look like we're all having fun with it? And it is another way to learn to lie.”        

– Naomi Aldort

Recommended books and authors:

John Holt: How children learn, how children fail, freedom and beyond, Teach your own, Learning all the time

A.S. Neill: Summerhill, Freedom not License

Grace Llewellyn: The Teenage Liberation Handbook; how to quit school and get real life

Daniel Greenberg: Free at Last: Sudbury Valley School (first democratic school.)

Peter Gray: Free to Learn

Pat Farenga, Former editor of Growing Without Schooling magazine

Alfie Kohn: Punished by Rewards, The Homework Myth, No contest; the case against competition, Feel Bad education, The case against Standardized testing

John Taylor Gatto: Dumbing us Down, Weapons of Mass Instruction

Matt Hern: Deschooling our Lives