About Us

Launched in March 2017, Refresh Books is proud to introduce ‘Listen…Think…Write!’ to the music education world.

Frustrated with creating worksheets, and horrified at the amount of photocopying and paper being used by her students, elementary music teacher Helen Van Spronsen developed a laminated booklet of worksheets that could be used by all students in her school.

Students loved ‘playing’ in the booklets with whiteboard markers. Much time was saved in preparation, and Helen didn’t avoid music writing time due to the ‘hassles’ (not enough copies for that class today, forgetting to punch the holes, broken pencils, not enough pencils, not enough erasers, wrong coloured pencil crayons, no sharpeners, kids poking holes through the paper with too-sharp pencils…if you are a teacher, you can add to this list).

Helen used the booklets at workshops for the Kodály Society of Canada, the British Columbia Kodály Society, and at the University of Victoria Summer Kodály Institute where she taught Level 1 Kodály Pedagogy.  Both pre- and in-service music teaching participants were enthusiastic about the multiple uses of the booklet and encouraged her to take it to the next level.

So here we are!

And no, Helen is not planning on giving up her day job just yet.

What would life be without kids to sing and play music games with?