Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Twinkle Practicing has to be Fun!

The resistance begins.  My 3-year-old has really loved practicing, but recently she gets grumpy when I say it's time to practice.  A part of me wants to get upset about it, and another just wants to quit and give up.  My SMART side tells me that I just need to change things up again and make them different and fun.  3-year-olds love to play games (as do most children of any age.)  I decided to pull out an old game that I've had online for a while and use that - and so far we've had a great practicing success!

The goal of the practicing is to get through the entire game which is just every twinkle variation twice.  Right now she's still just doing "Bread Song" on a couple variations, but she can play 4 variations all the way through.  However - Twinkle can be a very long song for a 3-year-old so if she decides to play a "Bread Song" of a Twinkle she can play all the way through she has to play it twice.  When she gets to the end of the game she wins and practicing is over!  I slip in a few bow exercises between pieces, and there is definitely a lot of rolling on the floor, looking out the window, and playing with anything she can get her hands on.

Yesterday we didn't need treats when we practiced, but today she wanted some.  She doesn't even like Smarties, but we used them anyway and she was happy.

What are some of your ideas for practicing with a young twinkler?

You can download this chart here.

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