About Margie…

Primarily a vocalist and musician, Margie has been teaching children in some capacity since 1979. She has since become a songwriter, recording artist, and music consultant for young children. Prompted by a desire to spend more time with her own little ones in 1990, she traded her corporate job to volunteer in the newly-formed EIP class at Chester Elementary School using her love of children, singing, and guitar to maximum effect.

This eventually led to a para-professional position with the State of Connecticut’s Preschool Services for the Blind, working through Chester Child Center. Margie became trained in Music, Mobility, Speech, and Occupational Therapies.

Having seen how music works its magic on all children, she developed her own musical pre-k curriculum in 1997 in order to introduce as many children as possible to her musical approach to learning!  In November 2012, this program was trademarked as “Music With Margie ™” preschool music movement program, which she hopes to be published by 2020, sharing this knowledge with other early childhood educators. She currently gives professional development workshops and in-service training to other teachers and daycare providers.

By 2002, she had accumulated so many funny story-songs, her fans were pushing her to record, so with the help of mentor Peter Walker and his uber-talented friend Phil Rosenthal, “Margie Warner the Performer” was born. She now has 2 children’s CDs, and one ‘grown-up’ folk CD she recorded with friends for charity. All are available on “Margie Shop”. 

In 2017, Margie began working for the Connecticut Storytelling Center (www.connstorycenter.org) as Education Program Manager.  CSC is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting emergent literacy in young children, presenting Pre-K programming "Littlest Listeners", and Elementary school programs such as "Start with Stories" and "Play-in-a-Day".  A wide range of professional storytellers provide literacy programming through classroom workshops and residencies, assemblies, and professional development for teachers.  She is also an active member of SCBWI.

“Back in the late 1990’s, I took a lot of workshops and underwent extensive training in order to teach music and movement to children with special needs in the Branford school system, as well as 3 years with the State of CT Preschool Services for the Blind. One day it dawned on me that I probably would have been considered a child with Attention Deficit Disorder if I had grown up in this day and age, and immediately called my mom and asked her how she did it-how did she manage to raise me so well without making me feel self conscious or somehow inadequate in some way. Her reply?‘I just loved you.’ That’s what I try to do with your children. Every day. I just love them. Each and every one of them is special or different in some way, and they all bring their own gifts to the table. My grandmother used to say to me, ‘you are no better than anyone else, but they are no better than you’. She saw the beauty and difference in every human being and loved them each unconditionally. So as your children advance in school, resist the labels that the system may try to place on them-just love them. It will be enough.”  --Margie

Mission Statement

I wish to have a positive influence on the lives of children.

• I believe ... that all children deserve the right to have the best education possible: an education that includes the arts.
  
• I believe ... that we all retain information longer and easier when it is taught in a multi-sensory fashion, including rhythms, rhymes and music. (Do you still sing your ABC's to file alphabetically?)
  
• I believe ... learning should be fun!
• I believe ... that everyone should be able to enjoy music in their own way –both the shy and the exuberant!
  
• I believe ... that the best learning happens in an environment of safety, love and creativity.
  
• I believe ... a sense of humor is essential when working with children!
  
• I believe ... we can do the “Hokey Pokey” and turn the world around!
  

  

Margie was featured on "Songwriter" with Dale Cramer-Burr on Wesleyan University's Public Radio station and NPR affiliate; WESU 88.1 FM.

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