Mission Statement

The EarlyStar Learner Program is a home-based multimedia DVD series designed to educate children and their parents about fundamental concepts, art and music through entertainment. EarlyStar Learner is dedicated to helping families attain higher artistic and cultural literacy.

EarlyStar Learner: Whole Learning For Fundamental Concepts

FALSE ASSUMPTION: Baby videos that are designed for passive viewing, can make children geniuses, smart, aware and creative, Einsteins. REALITY: Babies and toddlers learn and grow best from all multiple sensory inputs, and respond to positive, interactive engagement. PROBLEM: The market lacks successful, engaging programs that are proven to be effective in helping children grow mentally and creatively. SOLUTION: Multimedia entertainment that provides avenues for multiple learning styles. There are programs that are proven to be successful and engaging, and EarlyStar Learner incorporates the necessary ingredients, and adds to the mix, themes and activities. FALSE: Babies, infants and toddlers can be entertained and educated by simply having them watch and listen to moving images on a screen. TRUE: Inhibiting co-activity decreases learning, speech, awareness, kinesthetic abilities and social skills. In this respect, passive television watching becomes a numbing agent. Only television and video that is specifically designed to stimulate multi sensory responses can provide ways to engage the brain and body's full learning capacity.

VISUAL, KINESTHETIC, AUDITORY, VERBAL -- Multiple Learning Styles
Multiple learning styles refers to the diversity of ways in which kids learn and develop: through sight, touch/feel, hearing and verbal communication. Every child learns differently, so it's important to create ways in which they can learn organically, and according to their strengths. EarlyStar Learner provides an abundance of mix of learning styles to maximize true and positive learning experiences.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
The EarlyStar Learner Program is conceptualized as a collection of series, each with a unique focus. Within each series, various sets will be produced to enhance collectibility and encourage brand loyalty among consumers. Our initial series focuses on rhythm, more specifically, African drumming.

If music is the universal language, then rhythm is the fundamental grammar.
 -- Sauti : Arboleda

The Rhythm series is designed to facilitate the learning of rhythm and movement concepts by connecting rhythm to body movement and everyday objects, characters and animation. Tempo shifts, a diversity of instruments and real-world connections are designed to provide specific means of energizing or calming children, as needed by their parents. Each set within the series will feature rhythms of different cultures from around the world. 

We chose to focus on rhythm in the first installment of the program because of the fundamental, binding principle that rhythm brings to music from all cultures. Rhythm is a part of our material experience from the earliest moments of consciousness. The first rhythm a child hears is the mother’s heartbeat. Parents rock their children to sleep, babies rock back and forth for comfort, bounce up and down for enjoyment, learn to clap and respond to rhythm and music. Therefore, rhythm is an essential element in a child’s development.

Some quotes from parents: Good color, fun for kids Easy to watch Able to hold interest Liked the gradual addition of new beats and overlaid rhythms It got interactive fast Good mix of nature, people, animals Kept my child interested for more than 2 consecutive viewings! Excellent! Fun, educational, engrossing Made me want to move! Great for playing with my kids It made me want to get up and dance! Loved the music and nature references Really warm and inviting Well done Very helpful Helped to focus Helped to how the sounds were created

In addition, during childhood, mirror neurons become active when watching visual examples of rhythmic action -- babies and infants have an extraordinary ability to imitate responses (mimicking) The EarlyStar Learner: Rhythm Series, as a visual and aural experience, will help them learn to absorb, respond to and reciprocate the fundamentals of beat and rhythm.

In keeping with market trends in music and education, EarlyStar Learner: Rhythm Series will feature simple and fundamental drumming/rhythm and body movement instruction based on varied multicultural rhythm patterns.

EarlyStar Learner: Rhythm Series was created and developed by Teja Arboleda, M.Ed. and Ukumbwa Sauti, M.Ed., to introduce rhythm concepts and drumming simply and methodically to toddlers in a participatory process with a parent. On-screen visual graphics and text prompts cue parents with appropriate language and timing for rhythm changes and other participatory elements. One of the most compelling features of the product is a rich mix of images ranging from the home to the natural outdoor environment, displaying synchronized rhythmic elements that help children in developing an important awareness of rhythm in the world around them, developing integral inner sensitivities along with gross and fine motor skills.

Teja Arboleda, M.Ed.
Founder & Creative Director, Entertaining Diversity, Inc., Dedham, MA
Assistant Professor, Digital Media & Communications, The New England Institute of Art, Brookline, MA
M.Ed. Lesley University, Digital Media Production & Education
B.A. Clark University, Visual & Linguistic Socio-Communications

Teja has worked as a producer, director and editor for 22 years, and is the Founder and Creative Director at Entertaining Diversity, Inc. His educational videos for early childhood through high-school aged children, such as Diversity Elementary and Ethnic Man!® are distributed by Discovery Learning and McIntyre Media (Canada), and have aired on PBS. His sales and marketing video and DVD productions for Fortune 500 companies are distributed all over the US, and his television commercials have aired on major television outlets.

Prior to starting Entertaining Diversity, he was Assistant Director/Editor for FRONTLINE (PBS) from 1990 – 1992, and AD/Editor on more than 30 documentaries for PBS, one of which earned him an EMMY Award in 1993. He was producer at Chronicle (WCVB-TV/ABC), specializing in culture and race issues in New England.

In addition to his television and video work, he has lectured on issues of race and ethnicity at over 550 schools and colleges, in hundreds of cities and towns throughout 48 states, and is the author of In The Shadow of Race. He lived in Germany for 2 years, and Japan for 14 years.

Ukumbwa Sauti, M. Ed.
M.Ed. Cambridge College, Cultural Media Literacy, Cambridge, MA

Sauti is a college professor of video, television, MIDI music production and General Education at The New England Institute of Art in Brookline, MA, and Franklin Pierce College, Rindge, NH. In addition, he is a member of the True Story Theater improvisational playback theater troupe, and a member of Project: Think Different, as a media literacy educator. Ukumbwa has also been playing piano and keyboards since the age of 6. He is a composer and creator of soundtracks for moving image production, ranging from commercial work to video series, to feature-length movies. One of his proudest achievements was co-founding and directing The Lakeside All-Stars, a drum and dance ensemble consisting entirely of teenagers with developmental disabilities.

Ukumbwa has been playing percussion for over 20 years. He has performed all styles of music including rock, jazz, blues, African, world-beat, folk and Latin, with artists and bands such as Rick Gamad, Andy Crowe, Julie Dougherty and the Band, Confederacy of Dumpsters, Kingstreet, Northstreet, Kieran Ridge, Improvelocity and others. His influences range from traditional west African djembe ensembles, Malian tama players, Cuban congueros and Scottish Highlander bagpipe and drum groups to Babatunde Olatunji, Yaya Diallo, Mickey Hart and the Kodo drummers of Japan.

This initial launch of this important, compelling and proven series, is available through this website. The first of the Rhythm series is African Rhythms. In late 2008, look for Latin Rhythms and European Rhythms.