From the very beginning, babies are listening and learning. Research shows that music is one of the most powerful tools to shape the brain, especially during the first three years of life—the critical window for developing speech, reading, focus, and social skills.
That’s why Opus Conservatory is proud to offer Smart Start™, an early childhood music program created by the Royal Conservatory of Music. Designed for infants and toddlers up to 36 months, Smart Start™ blends music, movement, drama, and art in joyful weekly group classes that build both cognitive and musical skills.
Children learn through play—clapping rhythms, moving to music, or remembering melodies—while strengthening essential life skills like memory, attention, self-regulation, creativity, and social interaction.
What makes Smart Start™ unique is its foundation: backed by over 60 years of RCM pedagogy and guided by leading specialists in early childhood development and neuroscience, the program is both research-based and fun.
Along the way, children explore percussion and Orff instruments, develop fine motor skills, and build a foundation for future study in piano, guitar, voice, or other instruments.
✨ Give your little one the gift of music, play, and brain-boosting growth. Join Smart Start™ at Opus Conservatory and watch them thrive!
Backed by over 60 years of RCM pedagogy and developed with neuroscience research.
Connects music to early cognitive growth (attention, memory, focus, self-regulation).
Engages children through singing, movement, rhythm games, and imaginative play.
Parents/caregivers actively participate until children are 3½ years old.
0–12 Months
Gentle introduction to music, rhythm, and beat awareness.
Activities strengthen parent-child bonding through bouncing games, lullabies, and songs.
1–2 Years
Games with movement, walking, dancing, and percussion instruments.
Builds coordination, memory, and listening skills while enhancing social interaction.
2–3 Years
Focus on gross motor function through movement and music-based play.
Develops attention, memory, and independence in musical exploration.
3 Years
Children explore tempo, pitch, and dynamics through games and creative activities.
Singing expands as a core skill, while pattern recognition and artistic collaboration foster creativity.
At this stage, some families begin adding individual instrumental lessons (piano, etc.).
SmartStart™ is The Royal Conservatory’s signature, research-based Early Childhood Music Education Program. Our studio is certified by the RCM to teach this program. We’ve provided these FAQs based on The RCM website.
SmartStart™ is a program which uses music, supported by other art forms, to teach cognitive skills to young children.
Cognitive skills are the basic mental abilities that support us in our everyday activities. Skills such as attention, memory, perception, and cognitive flexibility are crucial both to daily tasks and special projects, and help us in activities as varied as reading, mathematics, planning, games, and socialization.
Research shows that cognitive skills can be developed from a very early age, and that music is one of the very best ways to help develop these skills. Children who learn these skills do better in every sphere of their lives, and research shows that starting early is associated with better cognitive skills.
Cognitive skills are a natural part of music education. For example, in a class, a child might be remembering a new song, paying attention to the teacher, and switching between tapping to the beat and clapping the rhythm. This kind of activity is good practice for cognitive skills as well as musical skills, and is just one of the many ways that our teachers help to develop your child’s skills.
The new Smart Start™ curriculum builds on the RCM’s sixty years of fine music pedagogy in early childhood. Under The Marilyn Thomson Early Childhood Education Centre, The RCM has been able to bring together leading subject specialists from across Canada to develop a unique and exciting early childhood program. Together with The RCM’s Director of Research, neuroscientist Dr. Sean Hutchins, The RCM’s early childhood music specialists are allowing a current understanding of cognitive skills to evolve our teaching of music. Also, modern educational practices help us understand that children learn in many different ways and it is important to differentiate the way that we teach to best serve the learning needs of the child. Supporting music with the arts (drama, dance and visual art) creates a full-bodied learning experience, including physical, visual and interpersonal engagement.
Children in Smart Start™ develop fine motor control, rhythm, creativity and sophisticated musical understandings through their exploration of a wide variety of percussion and Orff instruments. This learning is wonderful preparation for lessons on a specific instrument later on. Some children from three years old and above will also add a RCM instrumental program, such as piano or violin to their Smart Start™ program. Please discuss with this with our Director, Marisela Smith, which program is right for your child. We can teach some children to play an instrument as early as three years old.
Smart Start™ classes provide age-appropriate instruction in music reading through games and play-based learning activities. Opus has also created proprietary methods which can teach children to read music as early as three years old.
Our Smart Start™ teachers understand that young children learn best when they are engaged by an activity. They are highly skilled in using a great variety of teaching strategies, including stories, play and games. And don’t forget, children naturally enjoy both mental and physical activity. From memory games to creative play, cognitive skill development, especially though music, can be more fun than work.
Research plays an important role in the development, evaluation, and continuation of Smart Start™ classes. Our curriculum is based on current psychological and neuroscientific research on the role of music education on cognitive development. Our teachers receive training in this research, and we continue to refine our curriculum and practices based on it. In addition, in order to keep refining and developing our practices, we conduct original research on the outcomes of our Smart Start™ classes. This voluntary research is maintained through community support, and is vital to our continued improvement as an educational institution.