Practice Book for the Littlest Players

Meet Caroline.  She's 2 1/2 and loves to practice.  So, I made her a practice book and she LOVES it!  She's my only child that begs me to practice....3 or 4 or 5 times a day.  She can successfully play every variation of twinkle on open E string, including variation B if someone is playing with her.  She has okay posture and a baby bow hold - very tight - but she's working on a round thumb and pinky.  

What she can't get yet...everything else.  I try even a simple play position and rest position feet game.  It's like I'm speaking Chinese to her. She doesn't get it.  But she still loves to play.

An Easy Practice Game

I finally got back in the groove with practicing with this little game.  It's so simple I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner!  It's been so successful that it's been the standard way of practicing with my 5-year-old for over a month now.  Never has a practicing game lasted so long, but this one has!

BINGO!

I first got this idea from one of my student's moms who always comes up with great ideas to get her 5-year-old to practice.  There are lots of different ways to use this chart - and not only for beginners!

I have two blank charts available at The Practice Shoppe.  One is 6x6 and the other one is a typical 5x5 Bingo chart.  Fill in the blanks with the current practice points (if you don't want to always print out a new chart you could laminate it and use a dry-erase marker.)  Use different things to mark off the pieces such as chocolate chips, goldfish, gummy bears, acrylic jewels, etc.  When a line is completed the student gets all of the treats or items on that line.

You could also print off TWO copies of the bingo chart and cut one up and put in a bowl or ziplock baggy and randomly pull out the different practice points to practice.  When a BINGO is made (a line completed) practicing is over.  My daughter LOVES to play this way because every once in a while her practice session isn't very long (but not very often.)  With this rule, I've told her that if she gets a BINGO before she practices her recital piece then we still have to practice that at the end.

Some more ideas from my student's parent:
Sometimes just for variety, I'll include variations like the following:

"Play ______ with your eyes closed" 
"Play ______ with a distraction"  (I got this from dog training.  You pick something they should know well and have them play it while you are trying to distract them);
"Play ___ Scale to your favorite animal rhythm"  (She has to figure out the rhythm of the animal name, like hip-po-pot-a-mus, then play that rhythm for each note on the scale - she LOVES this);
"Pitch Page"  (sing a pitch page from the I Can Read Music book);
"Rhythm Page"  (clap a rhythm page from the I Can Read Music book);
"Play a piece for your dog" (whatever dog is parked on the couch becomes the audience and she enters the stage, I pantomime opening a curtain, she gets into position, plays, bows, etc.);
"Play your favorite piece"
"Play your most challenging piece"

As a teacher I had a student's mom ask how to motivate her daughter to review Book 1 since she just wants to move on and learn Book 1.  So, I used the same concept and put all the pieces in Suzuki Violin Book 1.  This would be an excellent way to practice Book 1 - maybe a special practice each week devoted only to Book 1 review.

I hope you enjoy this game as much as we do!

A Practicing Game

Some of you may know, but most of you don't, but I'm having a BABY!  What does that mean?  It means that I've been sick for a month now and not feeling up to doing much of anything....including practicing.  I'm sure my daughter doesn't mind, but in the back of my mind, I feel like a hypocrite for having a blog all about practicing when I'm not practicing what I preach...at least not lately.  I WILL get back into the routine again sometime soon.

I've spent some time adding practicing charts to the website I've had stored on my computer for months.  So, if you go to The Practice Shoppe website and browse around you may find some new, helpful charts.  Here is a game I found that I used a while back with my little one.  It's a basic chart, so you could make up your own rules.

One way: fill in the boxes with songs that need to be practiced and just start from the beginning and use some sort of marker (these fun erasers work wonders) and proceed one box at a time until you get to the end.  I let my daughter choose what to play on the butterflies.

Another way: fill in the boxes with songs that need to be practiced and make some cards with ways to move across the board (move forward two spaces, move back 3 spaces.)  Include other fun cards (give a kiss to mom, play the next song outside, etc.)

Like I said - simple....we moms don't have time for anything too elaborate.  But perhaps this will put some spice into your practice this week.  I think I may use it again.

Find this chart HERE!