Welcome to Winter Dreams!
Come take a Musical Journey with me,
one First Step at a time!
This video course contains a wealth of songs and movement games that will round out the First Steps in Music curriculum. It is a resource you can use to make music learning an enjoyable experience for your child.
The cost for the Winter Dreams video course is $149.00, and comes with a 100% no-questions-asked money back guarantee.
Here’s what you will receive:
- 8 video classes, each 20 to 25 minutes in length
- A free downloadable version of the SONGTALES CD (sung by me). Your children will love these songs!
- Optional group ZOOM meeting on Thursday, February 13 at 3:00 p.m. EST
- Optional private family ZOOM call with your family’s singers, scheduled after 4 lessons have been completed
- Students receive certificates for each song they learn or create, and a Singing Star Certificate when they complete the course
The 8 videos in the course will be released once weekly on Tuesdays, beginning Feb. 4 and ending Mar. 25. The videos are timed to include seasonal and holiday content where possible, beginning with Groundhog Day/Candlemas. Each video moves through all of the 8 steps of the curriculum, is timed for a child’s attention span, and lasts 20-25 minutes.
“Winter Dreams” is one course in an entire year’s series of seasonal 8-video courses. “Winter Dreams” will be followed by “Spring Frolic” in April, “Summer Fun” in June, and “Autumn Colors” in October, 2025. You can purchase the entire “Four Seasons” First Steps in Music course series now for the incredibly low price of $469.00. That’s more than a 20% savings ($127.00) when purchased separately!
- 100% Money Back Guarantee
Enroll in Winter Dreams
Placing your order
When you enter your information below and place your order, you will be taken directly to our website, and will be logged in. You will be able to view your account information and the course or courses you are enrolled in.
Remember to write down your password! When you receive automatically generated emails, your user name will be identified, but not your password.
If you choose to purchase The Four Seasons course series, you will enter the series with the “Winter Dreams” course, and then be able to participate in the spring, summer and autumn courses as they open in April, July and October of 2025.
Michael and Ruth Purcell
have been living in North Georgia since 2001.
RUTH earned a B.A. degree in music at George Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee, and Level 2 Orff-Schulwerk certification. She is also a folksinger/songwriter, sacred music composer, choral singer and director, freelance violist and fiddler, and a music educator for over forty years. She received her teaching certification from NGCSU in 2003, while teaching general music and launching an after-school chorus at Westminster Christian School (now North Georgia Christian School) in Gainesville. She also organized and directed the North Georgia Children’s Chorus in Dahlonega, GA, which lasted until the pandemic. In 2006 she received certification as an instructor for First Steps in Music, and in 2007 in Conversational Solfege, both created by Dr. John Feierabend, Professor of Music Education at Hartt School of Music.
Ruth is a founding member of St. John the Wonderworker Eastern Orthodox Church in Atlanta, GA, and the original choir director. After moving to north Georgia, Ruth received certification as a children’s choir director through the Chorister’s Guild Institute, and for several years worked as director of two children’s choirs at First Presbyterian Church in Gainesville. She maintains an active piano and strings studio, and she has been a fiddle instructor for the Georgia Pick and Bow after-school program in Lumpkin County for several years. You may have seen her onstage at the historic Holly Theater in Dahlonega, GA with fiddle in hand in several productions. She is also a member of the Georgia Musicale Group.
MICHAEL, also a founding member of St. John the Wonderworker Church, is a music aficionado, plays acoustic bass, and is a lifelong singer and whistler! He attended Southwestern College where he studied chemistry, physics and mathematics. He launched and managed a residential cleaning service in Atlanta while living there, and started and operated a similar business in the Dahlonega area for a number of years. After retiring, he began to focus on his interest in computer programming and website design. He has developed and maintained websites for the North Georgia Children’s Chorus, Another Monster Productions, and Music for All Ages, as well as the Lumpkin County Habitat for Humanity. The video editor and marketing director for all present and future Music for All Ages courses, and go-to person for computer software fixes, he has become renowned as a Computer Whisperer among his circle of friends.
Michael and Ruth relocated to Toccoa, GA in October, 2021, and are currently members of St. Timothy’s Orthodox Mission OCA. They are enjoying getting to know new friends and their new community!
The Purcell Family Band during our son David’s high school years.
What Can You Expect From This Course?
WINTER DREAMS is an 8-lesson video course, delivered online once weekly on Tuesdays, beginning February 4, 2025. The course is yours to keep and can be viewed at any time that works for your family, or even multiple times!
The dates of the course are February 4 – March 25. The content is timed to be relevant for the 4 weeks of February and the 4 weeks of March, including their distinctive holidays where possible. During the run of the course, I will be available via email or phone (706-482-8031) to answer any questions you may have. In addition, I hope to have an opportunity to interact live with your child via ZOOM. The scheduled ZOOM calls are optional; not every young child is comfortable with online interaction in that way.
This course is a sequence carefully crafted to awaken and develop your child’s musical senses. Each video will improve his ability to sing on pitch, keep a steady beat, to listen to music as more than background sound, and to sing and move with awareness and sensitivity. Songs passed down through many generations will begin to fill your house!
Each video contains activities in a sequence that covers the 8 steps of the First Steps in Music curriculum:
- Vocal Exploration
- Song Fragment
- Simple Songs
- Arioso
- Movement Exploration
- Movement for Form and Expression
- Beat Movement
- Songtale
In WINTER DREAMS, I’m including an extra step on each video, a fingerplay before the Beat Movement segment. Fingerplays are a form of movement for form and expression, but sometimes they are a lot like a beat motion activity. They add a familiar “doability” for our youngest students!
The 8 lessons you will receive are currently structured like this:
VIDEO 1 – Groundhog Day
VIDEO 2 – Snowy Days
VIDEO 3 – Wintry Weather
VIDEO 4 – Winter Sports
VIDEO 5 – Furry Friends
VIDEO 6 – Muddy Days
VIDEO 7 – More Cold Days
VIDEO 8 – Nature Wakes Up
In addition, every family that enrolls in the course will receive:
An optional group ZOOM meeting on Thursday, Feb. 13 at 3:00 p.m. for all families enrolled, so that we can all meet one another and compare notes. This meeting will run 20 minutes to a half hour.
An optional private family ZOOM call with your family’s singers, following completion of Lesson 4 (about 15-20 minutes), so we can have some personal interaction, and I can hear your child sing alone if he feels ready to do so.
All new registrants will receive a special bonus of my Songtales CD. This downloadable version contains 29 varied songs that tell vivid stories. Seasonal and activity songs, lullabies, and a few foreign language folk songs are featured.
Our Guarantee
We’re so certain that you will love the “Winter Dreams” course—and the entire “Four Seasons” course series—that if you’re not satisfied for any reason, we will refund 100% of your payment, any time up until the last class is released on March 25th, no questions asked.