Butterfly babes spread their musical and creative wings

BUTTERFLY Babes is an innovative musical education programme that provides children under the age of five with the opportunity to spread their musical and creative wings. The name Butterfly Babes was chosen to symbolise the metamorphosis that every child goes through in early development into creative and receptive beings.

Based in Westport, classes are held locally in Westport, Louisburgh, Castlebar and also in Swinford.

The programme uses the mediums of music, dance and movement to enhance every learning stage of a child’s early development.

Every parent has probably heard of the Mozart Effect and the studies by Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky (1993) that demonstrated the effect of listening to music by Mozart on spatial reasoning. The results of this ground-breaking study were published in Nature. However more studies in the last two decades have shown that there is an even greater transformational power to music in health, education and well-being for developing bodies and brains.

The Butterfly Babes programme was developed in 2015 by Jace and Angel Knight as a way to bring the gift of music to the young and the young at heart. Classes are not just intended to help only the children but are fun and social gatherings that are much needed for parents with young children that need to connect and have an meeting point with other mums and dads. 

Classes are led by Angel Knight, a qualified professional teacher in the performing arts.

As parents with a baby under six months and new to county Mayo, Jace and Angel were looking for a young children’s group that would be fun, creative and social for them and their child, Sophia. Because there was nothing like what they were looking for in the west of Ireland they decided to create their own music education programme that would enhance early childhood development through music and play. The result was Butterfly Babes!

The programme is intended to bring out the creative, musical genius in every child with its unique use of classical music scores, nursery rhymes and original pieces.

Angel Knight is a professional drama teacher with over a decade of experience working with children. She trained as an actress and teacher in England and attended the Guilford School of Acting. She has performed all over the world.

Classes are now forming in six different locations in Mayo over five days of the week (Tuesday to Saturday).

Visit www.butterflybabes.ie for more information and venue schedules.