Practicing I'm a Little Monkey!

My darling daughter just finished her I'm a Little Monkey chart.  I'm a Little Monkey is a pretty standard pre-twinkle song with Suzuki.  It paves the way to learning Twinkle and requires lots and lots of playing.  My girl's other teacher, Ramona Stirling, uses this chart and I like that it's unique and different from the typical chart.

First of all, I print 5 copies of this chart.  This makes 90 repetitions.

We then cut the chart and tape it together to make a giant ladder.  Each day she would average about 5 Monkey songs and we would put stickers on the chart at the end of her practice.  

 After a few weeks, we finished the chart and she got a prize....such an exciting day for her.  We've taped it on the wall for everyone to see.  It's been a great accomplishment for her.  Now she is ready to learn the basics of Twinkle!

You can download this chart at The Practice Shoppe.

Practicing Lots of Pieces

We've been in need of fun practicing ideas at our household this week.  The holidays are here and my kids don't want to practice.  My darling 6-year-old has SO MUCH to practice each day, but her attention span is only good for about 35-45 minutes.  So, we get done what we can in that amount of time.  She's learning to read clocks at school so I tell her where the hand will be and she can be done.  I don't always make my kids practice for a set amount of time - in fact, most of the time we just practice until we're done.  Lately, looking at the clock works for us.

One of the many things she needs to practice at this time of year is CHRISTMAS MUSIC!!  She needs to practice 15 Christmas songs and instead of droning through the list, we made this chart together.  I've assigned each of her pieces a number and she randomly picks a number on the chart and plays the song assigned to that number.  We then put a sticker on the number.  I've offered her a piece of candy when she's finished (hopefully by the end of the week).  Just as simple as that and she's happy to practice her Christmas music again.

You can assign your own pieces 1-15 and play this with your children.  This would be a great way to review!  I also made one for a list of 10.

Find these charts here and here.

Enjoy!

Magical Review

During our two-a-day practices, my daughter spends a good part of the evening practicing playing through pieces for her Rocky Mountain Strings group as well as reviewing. For the past nine months, she has been overwhelmed with pieces to learn for two different performing groups, Christmas, as well as keeping up with Suzuki - so I haven't enforced review for a long time. One performing group is done for the year, the other is having its final concert next week and all the pieces are learned. I'm finding that she has more time so I instigated another review routine.

I found this chart in Maurer's String Book. It's great because it enforces the most recently learned pieces in Books 4 and 5 and still allows for a little review of the other books - but it's not overwhelming. Hearing my daughter play these review pieces has been magical. In the past year, her tone and technique have skyrocketed and she played these pieces with such quality! I heard the most beautiful Allegro - which was an excellent example for my 4-year-old who is currently learning that piece. Her musicality in the Seitz Concertos (after stumbling through some of the notes since it's been a while) was incredible!

I affirm that REVIEW is an important and essential part of the Suzuki Method. If my daughter didn't review when she was in books 1-4, this review now that she's in book 5 would have just been relearning all the notes. Instead, she's taking pieces she already knows and adding on layer after layer of musicality!

You can download this review chart at The Practice Shoppe. Enjoy!

Circle Bow Bubbles

I got another positively adorable chart from one of my student's moms who is also taking lessons from me. Here is what she has to say about this wonderful chart!

This is a great way to work on bow control and stability, tone, posture, and my bow hold all at the same time without having to remember where I'm at in a piece, what note I'm supposed to be on, etc.

It's a silhouette of a child blowing bubbles combined with bubble graphics.  Each bubble represents 10 circle bows.  There are 150 bubbles on the chart.  The student will have done 1500 circle bows when the chart is completed.  I printed this one for us on card stock since it will be around a bit.

Thanks, Amanda!!  
You can find this chart here!

Report on 2-a-day Practices

I have been doing 2-a-day practices for the past two weeks with my two daughters. Here is my report...

SUCCESS!!!

This is definitely going to be our new practice routine - especially next school year. My kid's school is early enough that they don't have time to do all of their practicing in the morning, but I am a believer that morning practices are the best. I have broken up my children's practice list by morning and afternoon. They practice their new material in the morning when their mind is fresh. They practice review in the afternoon when they can just play for fun. It's been amazing at the practice quality from my 8-year-old in Book 5. She's diligently working on her new stuff and has rapidly progressed. However, the review has not gone by the wayside. She's done more review these past few weeks and has even polished her Seitz concertos once again. Here is a picture of the practice list I tape to the wall next to her music stand.

My 4-year-old Book 1 daughter is doing very well also. In our first practice session she plays her 3 newest pieces plus her new finger exercise (this week it was blue finger pattern 10 times.) This takes about 10-15 minutes. By then she's happy to take a break. In the second practice session of the day, we use this chart and she puts magnets on the pieces she's played. When the chart is filled she's finished. Awesome practicing this week!

How to Practice with a Twinkler

It's been three weeks of practicing with my 4-year-old daughter and I'm reminded of some essential steps to practicing with a small twinkler. 

1. Make it short - most 3, 4, and 5 year olds are not used to standing still for very long. The time will gradually lengthen during practicing, but at the beginning make it short and consistent so they have a good experience with practicing. If it's drudgery from the beginning you will not succeed.

 

2. Make it fun - There is no problem with using fun practice charts, toys, and treats with practicing. My daughter gets so excited for her 1 candy corn after practice. So far her teacher has given her some simple chart to X off each day. This week we have a 25 chart to complete for her new song, Pop Goes the Weasil. Wands, toys, animals, etc. all make practicing fun for a little child. Think of their preschool class...they aren't sitting in desks all day learning their colors and shapes - they're learning in a fun environment. Make that fun environment at home.

 

3. Do it over and over and over and over and over again - If your practicing is short you can do it a lot of times throughout the day. The first week my daughter just had to bow, clap the rhythms, make a simple fox with her bow hand, and hold her violin up with her chin. All together that took about 5 minutes. We'd do it all over after she did everything once. If she was still focused we'd do it all over a third time. Then later that day we'd show dad what she was practicing and do it again once or twice. That's practicing everything FIVE times each day. What a great way to start getting geared up for repetitions - which any person learning an instrument will have to do A LOT of!