A Slightly Longer Practice

I'm amazed at how my 3-year-old's attention span is increasing.  It can sometimes be hard for a new parent practicing with their young child to imagine the future with their child practicing for 15, 20, or even a half hour.  At first, practicing is really just about 5 minutes.

I mentioned a while ago that my darling daughter was practicing 10 things a day. That's it!  We would flip a bead on our 10-bead counter for every little song she played.  She only had about 5 little pre-twinkle pieces in her repertoire so we'd play them an average of two times per day, but some days some would be played more and some less.  At the time I remember thinking, "I'm only having her play everything twice?  That doesn't seem like enough, but she won't stand still any longer."

Now that we're working on Twinkle we've upgraded to the DOUBLE bead counter - 20 beads.  She now plays 20 things during her practice and the goal is to get AT LEAST 3 full Twinkles in, but I hope to get as many as 5.  She is still so little (3 years and 8 months) and doesn't like to play the whole Twinkle song too many times because it's so long.  She does great at breaking it apart into sections.  She also reviews all of her pretwinkle songs, is starting the "bread song" on all the other rhythms, and is now learning the notes with flashcards - we're working on open strings right now.

She's basically in charge of her own practicing and she always gets it done because she gets a piece of gum after she practices every day if she finishes the entire bead counter.

We are working on a 100 chart for Twinkle Variation A.  I will also start a 100 chart for Twinkle Theme when she learns it.  After she completes those charts and can play through all the twinkles with the piano she'll earn her Twinkle Trophy!  I'll be sure to post about that when it happens!








The double-bead counters are made to order.  If you would like to order one you can e-mail me at leslie@thepracticeshoppe.com.  You can look at the website: www.thepracticeshoppe.com and look at all the choices of bead counters.  

Day 1 of Two-a-days

Success!!! My 8 year old practiced her new pieces and scales before school. She was surprised that it didn't take her as long as she thought (she's so used to a long practice.) Since she had no violin lesson today and I didn't teach, her second practice session was before dinner. Again, she did everything on her list for afternoon - basically review and note reading - and this time I was surprised that it didn't last forever. It felt so good to know she did a full days practice today without it taking the whole evening.

I also tried this with my 4 year old. It's more common to have two-a-days with younger children because their attention span is shorter. But this time was more productive to me than it has in the past because the first practice session worked on her newest piece, scale, and the two pieces she's performing on a recital on Wednesday. We were finished before we knew it! The second practice was after dinner and it was a fun practice where she played every other piece in Book One.

Two great practices in one day! Hooray for me!