Enhance Practice with a Cube Timer

Yesterday I shot this quick video during my daughter's practice.  I didn't have time to clean up or do my hair and make-up, it's a raw video, but that is because I had to catch this girl in the moment.  Emma was practicing so well and I went in to check up on her and she had this set up with three different cube timers and a bead counter.  She was practicing spots slowly and over and over and organizing her practice so she could get everything done.  Here it is - it's only 1:15 minutes long.  Enjoy!

Here is another post about the cube timer.

  

Practicing Work-Out!

I got this idea from James Hutchins on the Suzuki Parents as Partners Online conference two years ago.  Since then I've used it a lot with my students and want to have it readily accessible to my students this year so I put it behind the front cover of their practice books this year.

Basically, a "workout" is focused practicing using review pieces.  My "workout" page is just a list of the Suzuki violin pieces in books 1 & 2 in order.  You could make your own "workout" page with your own list of pieces that would be easy enough to practice without thinking about the notes.

I assign a time for the workout.  With my own kids, I like to choose a specific time that is on one of our Cube Timers so that they can just flip it over and practice (so easy!!)  For this specific amount of time my students play through their list focusing on whatever it is I've assigned them.  For some it could be playing with their eyes on the highway, for others, it might be keeping your scroll up.  It could be to help posture points, intonation, or focus.  If the student can play the first piece all the way through with the focus point they can move on to the next piece on the list.  They keep playing through the pieces until the timer dings - then they are done with their workout for the day.  They mark where they stopped and start there for their workout the next day.

I love assigning workouts because it really lets a student focus on one thing for 5 or 7 minutes without the student thinking about the notes or bowings.  For Suzuki students, this is a very efficient way to do their review.

If you are a Suzuki violin student/parent/teacher you may download my workout sheet (I laminate it and write on it with a dry-erase marker so that we can reuse it - and have the student mark their spot with a post-it flag.)  You can also make your own list for different instruments or repertoire.  Let me know what successes you've had with your students using a "workout!"

Cube Timer Wonder

I've been so delighted with these new Cube Timers that I found recently.  I have had several people request that I put these online and I love how this spices up our practice!

My daughter's teacher just concluded a contest that really helped reinforce smart practicing!  I often roll a die or spin a wheel or just tell my students or children to do an over-and-over spot _____ amount of times.  I often do 10 times per day because I use a bead counter a lot.  If it's a short over and over it may be 20 or 30 times a day.  This contest counted the TIME rather than the repetitions and the great thing about using time instead of the number of times is that the quality of overs and overs is better.

Each student has a cube timer and would practice hard spots in their piece over and over for that amount of time.  My younger daughter only has the attention span to do 1 minute at a time - so we flip the cube to the 1 and it would automatically start a 1-minute timer.  She'd practice her spot for 1 minute and when the timer would go off she'd finish her spot and be done.  (If she needed more time we'd do another minute.)  My older daughter would do her spots for longer - 3, 5, or 7 minutes.  For every minute they did an over-and-over spot they would color in that many numbers on this chart. (5 minutes of overs and overs would be 5 numbers.)  At the end of the summer, every student handed in their charts, and everyone got a prize, but the people with the most minutes got to choose first.

Since the contest finished we have still been practicing using the cube timer almost daily...it's become part of our routine.  My 4-year-old does at least one task for 1 minute using the cube timer each day (this week it's circle bows.)  My 7-year-old uses part of her practice just going over difficult spots in her pieces using the cube timer.  With her I sometimes roll a die to determine how many spots we need to do - and then we do that many spots with the timer.  The biggest success has been with my 11-year-old who practices on her own.  She's using the timer to practice all sorts of spots in her pieces.  Her practicing has gone from playing her pieces over and over to playing spots in her pieces over and over.

What I like most about these cube timers is that they are so easy to use.  I know most timers aren't very hard to use, but it requires pushing buttons and setting or resetting the timer.  With the cube timer, all you have to do is just flip the cube and the timer starts.  There is a digital timer on the bottom if you are curious about how far along you are on the timer.  There is light on the top so you know it's working.

We've been mainly using the 1, 3, 5, 7 timer, but I really like the longer timers as well because you can break a practice session into 15-minute sessions, or use the timer to time the practicing.  I'm also thinking I may use it to time computer time for my kids (30 minutes - no buttons, just turn the timer over.)