High Adventure in North Carolina: Sara DeVries

High Adventure Sara DeVries

Let's Play Music teachers come in all flavors. This month, we'd love to show you how fun it is when an adventure-loving woman like Sara turns her attention to teaching music in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Sara's Philosophy: "The world is beautiful and people are good. Live and love fully, with no regrets."

Dreams accomplished: Sara has: danced on a roof in London, kissed on top of the Eiffel Tower, was a glacier guide in Alaska, swam with pink dolphins in the Amazon Jungle, was a river guide on the Main and Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho, helped orphans in Ecuador, loved, lived among, and served Filipinos while on a volunteer mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter­day Saints, mountaineered above 20,000 feet, rappelled off the Grand Teton, summited Mt. Rainier, spoke Mandarin for a year, had a piece of writing published, stayed up all night in Scotland, went scuba diving in Mexico under a full moon, has two lovely children and a wonderful husband.

Dreams yet to come: Sara plans to: see a sunset in Africa, learn yet another

language, live/travel with family to a foreign country, get a novel published, win a photography contest, be kind all the time, continually make a difference for good, perfect my Southern accent, have another baby! (due December 18, 2015)

Your Let’s Play Music History? "I have been a Let’s Play Music teacher since 2008 and LOVE the program. I graduated in secondary education and enjoy being able to help develop young musicians and meaningful relationships with both parents and students. 

I taught for several years in Alpine, Utah, with a large studio (9 classes, 3 of each year) and am in my second year teaching in Charlotte, NC, with a small studio (3 classes in all). It's fun watching the program blossom here in the South."

Why Let’s Play Music? "After teaching in the public school system and wanting to stay home with two children, Let’s Play Music was a great fit for many reasons. 

I looked at the lesson plans and saw that all five learning types of students would be reached, that curriculum focused on movement, play and experience, and that the philosophy of Let’s Play Music centers on a quote from Plato, “The function of beauty in the education of children is to lead them imperceptibly to love through sensory experience what they will afterwards learn to know in its own form as an intelligible principle.” Beautiful! 

Let’s Play Music curriculum encourages me to teach in a way that comes naturally to me—through play, positive experiences, and relationship development. I love “leading” these darling children on their path to musicianship and I learn much from them, too!

What are some things that make your studio stand out?: It's fun to be in a class with a friend, or to have someone to carpool and share childcare with. To help current clients as well as new families know that their friends will have an opportunity to register, I pass around my waitlist monthly for clients to write their friends' names. I make sure not to completely fill my classes for the next year until I have contacted the new friends. Basically, friends and family get to register before the general public to ensure they get a spot!

To help make dancing to the song, “Baby step, leap” even more adventurous, we might pretend we are at the ball with lovely gowns on and we are dancing in the middle of the ballroom. We do the song with elegant steps and leaps and delicate trots “down again”. Especially for the boys, we might pretend we are in the middle of a jungle, surrounded by the enemy and we have to get across the room without stepping on any landmines/bombs. We step and leap through the jungle and run “down again” when we see the enemy. 



The first time I had second-year students graduating, I had a few that hadn’t missed a practice all year. At the end of year program, I rewarded them with  small gift and perfect practicers award. I also had the parents of these perfect practicers stand and receive a single rose. We all know that behind a perfect practicer is a dedicated parent!  Now my first year students already ask if they can be perfect practicers when they are in the second year! This also sets the tone for parents that expectation are both high and achievable for students to accomplish a perfect practice year. Of course I offer an opportunity for make-ups if students travel and miss a practice or two.




REGISTER for classes with Sara in Charlotte, NC, or contact her.