Draft:Barbara Milne

Barbara Milne (born March 8, 1946) is an American educator, author, singer, and songwriter. Her skill set and passion were creating educational books and bedtime songs for children from prenatal to about six years. Inspiration for her original ideas using slow and repetitious music was partially enlightened by research done by Georgi Lozanov, ‘the father of accelerated learning.’ Although unproven at the time Barbara wrote her music, today, her slow and repetitious songs have been shown to be very effective in early childhood learning by many leaders in the field of education.

Career

Educator

Milne started her career as an elementary teacher in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Several years later, she moved back to California and taught first grade for seven years at Will Rogers Elementary School in the anta Monica School District. After pausing her teaching career to become a mother, she later resumed teaching in Cerritos, California, where she taught parent education at the ABC Adult School for over 25 years. She taught parents how to enhance their parenting skills and educate their infant and preschool children.

Educational musician

Milne started her music career in 1980 and is known for educating young children through music. She initially wrote the songs for her young daughter, which inspired her to create educational bedtime songs for children. Originally available as tapes, her music is now available as CDs, musical downloads, and streaming on most platforms. All of her supplementary products are available as PDF downloads. With time, she launched musical videos, books, teaching aids, and educational games. She released her first album, Sounds Like Fun, in 1984. Discovery Toys exclusively marketed it. Her albums, Sounds Like Fun and Sounds Like Learning, are the most successful educational music albums in the history of Discovery Toys.

Author

Milne collaborated with her friend JoAnne Brosnahan to create A Calendar of Home/School Activities. The book, designed for grades K-3, was originally published by Scott, Foresman, and Company and later by Goodyear Publishing.

Opposites Are Fun, a comprehensive book of opposites with music CD, was published by Tender Learning Concepts for Discovery Toys in 2005. The songs were written and sung by Barbara Milne. Illustrations were by Olga Munoz and music arrangements by Dana Morris.

Game Developer

Letter Fun Lotto, a board game developed by Milne exclusively for Discovery Toys in 2010, explores playful ways to learn alphabet letters and sounds. This game is part of Barbara’s ‘Sounds Like Phonics’ product collection, exclusive to Discovery Toys.

Short Vowel Fun, “Magic Monkey” developed exclusively for Discovery Toys in 2010, is a fun card game that matches first letter sounds and rhyming words. The game is a first step towards reading success by using “Hidden Letter” pictures that aid in phonemic awareness.