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.  

Pre-Twinkle Practice

This is how we are practicing this week with my darling 3-year-old!  For the last two months, she's been a happy practicer, begging me several times a day to practice.  This week we experienced the first moments of resistance.  I'm pretty sure one of the problems may be because I was frustrated one day and snapped at her during practice.  I regret it and have tried to stop practicing before I get upset.  It doesn't happen often, but when the baby is crying and I have lots to do and she's rolling around on the floor or has a bad case of practicitis (I'm thirsty, my cheek itches, my foot hurts, look at my owie) I tend to get frustrated.

This, in conjunction with actually having to play her violin more than sit, is causing a few groans around our house.  Back to my good ol' bead counter.  She knows 6 pre-twinkle songs and I've told her that after she plays 10 songs she can have a piece of candy.  She's still restless and doesn't stand for that long so in-between songs we do bow games, sing songs, practice our rhythms, etc.  I let her choose which pieces she plays.  Today she played "All the Pretty Flowers" six times and each of the other songs once.  Sometimes it's spread out more equally.

Here are the songs we practice:

Eek the Ants
Pop goes the Weasel
Dirty Doggy Scrub Scrub
Elephants and Ants
Little Mice
All the Pretty Flowers

I have a handout with all my Pretwinkle songs that I'm working on.  Hopefully, I'll have it online soon!!

How to Practice with a 3 Year Old

My darling daughter, Caroline, has been wanting to play the violin since she could walk!  This is one of my favorite pictures of her as a toddler climbing up on the piano to play one of the violins.  She knew she wasn't supposed to do it!  That's why she has a mischievous look on her face.

I've let her play on a little tiny violin for years now, but finally, I've decided to make an effort to practice with her every day.  My other kids take from another wonderful teacher, but because of time and money, I've decided to take on being her teacher for a while.  She's 3 years and 4 months old now.

Several people have asked how I can teach {practice} with such young children.  Here is a little glimpse of how we practice each day.

1. First of all, you need a darling little child.  Students in my studio can start as young as age 3, but it's sometimes easier for the parent to wait until age 4 or 5.  I know a teacher who is teaching some 2-year-olds this fall.  It's possible, it just takes time and patience.  Practicing with a young child can sure be fun, though!  They love to learn new things and play fun games!

2. I start all my students on a foot chart.  This keeps them focused at the lesson and during practice.  It's customized for them and I let them color or do whatever they want with it.  This foot chart is made out of vinyl that I got at Joann.  You can make 4-foot charts out of 1 yard of vinyl.  I've seen other teachers make them out of folder files, paper, you can even buy them online premade with feet and rhythms.

3.  I keep a practice book to organize my practice.  Since I'm teaching my own child I fill out another chart every 7 days with updated material.  I let Caroline put stickers on when she wants with the things that we've practiced.  You can make your own practice books like I did, or they can even be found premade online.  

4.  The downloads at The Practice Shoppe have so many fun charts.  Kids this age love charts, stickers, and goals.  This particular chart is for 100 bow holds.  When she finishes the chart she will get a prize out of my prize box - and have a beautiful bow hold!

5.  Of course, an instrument is important.  I often start 3 year olds on a foam-a-lin, but Caroline has been playing around with the real thing since she was one so I just let her use her own violin.  Notice I have to put lots of stickers and stuff on the violin to help her, especially on her bow.

6.  I have lots of these bead counters at my house and my kids and students use them a lot.  This is great for all types of practice.  This week we do a bow hold then flip a bead (the later I mark her chart).  Maybe next week it will be the number of times she plays a little pretwinkle song.  The goal constantly changes, but the bead counter is always a constant 10 TIMES!  No quitting until you've done it 10 times.

7.  Magic wands are a wonder with little kids.  OK - they aren't magic, but I tell them they are.  I first start off by practicing bow hold on a magic wand.   This is a picture of the wand rubber-banded to the violin to help with playing straight on the highway.  You can also use a pencil, but the wand is so much more FUN!  I can even still hang up the violin with the wand on the violin.

8.  Another gadget we practice with is the "elbow stick."  I'm not sure who came up with this idea, but it's great for practicing opening up the elbow and singing all the pretwinkle songs.  It's just a dowel and sprinkler part with some rubber bands to provide a stop for the sprinkler part.  We sing all our songs with it every day.  I have to help her a lot still, but she's gradually getting so she can do it on her own.  Another way to practice this movement is by doing "soaps" which is just rubbing the bow hand up and down the violin arm while doing the twinkle rhythms.  We do both. 

I hope this gave you some good ideas about practicing with young children.  It can be a challenge at times, but oh so fun!  And it's awesome to be able to show other people that your amazing children can do something hard like play the violin!

Repetition is Key!

Am I tooting my own horn by telling you {again} how awesome these bead counters are!  Probably!  I've had a bead counter off and on for my 7-year-old.  These last two weeks have been awesome practicing weeks for her because of this bead counter.  She has started the Bach Double and we have been listening to it over and over for at least a month in the car on the way to school.  Each week her teacher assigns her four or five HARD spots in this piece.  I help her the first few times and she is on her own.  Every day she has me flip the bead counter and does every section ten times.  I'm telling you - this little girl will learn Bach Double in lightning speed.  I bet she'll have it memorized before she turns eight (seriously - $100 bucks right now.)

I think she is so successful at learning the violin so fast because we have been doing repetitions on every piece since she started the violin.  I took her teacher very seriously from the start when she said play a spot 50 times per day.  I'll tell you - we did it 50 TIMES every day.  It probably wasn't until the end of Book 3 when we had SO much to practice that I would be a little lenient on the overs-and-overs.  But I believe that she now has a brain that can do overs-and-overs so easily.

So, if you want a tad of advice.  DO THE REPETITIONS!  It's hard at first but then it becomes habit.  It's the only way to really learn a piece well.  Professionals do it!  Nobody is ever too good to play the hard spots over and over!