Activities and Materials

 "Monotony is the enemy of music"--Shin'ichi Suzuki.

I would like to share with you some of the materials we are using at home to make our practices more interesting for big A.

Our Books:
- Piano Suzuki Book 1
- The Music Tree 'Time to Begin' Book.
- The Music Tree 'Activities' Book.

As you can see in the picture above we also work using a 'Homework chart'. This chart was designed by our teacher this previous semester and let me tell you that it has made a big difference in the way that we have organized our activities. Thanks to this chart we can keep a consistent routine, our teacher can see what did we do at home the previous week and follow up on that or give us a new challenge. Big A gets to see the chart as well and see all the work he has done at home, so it becomes 'real' for him, and he feels good about it.
Here is a close up to our "Homework chart".
 

The activities that this chart includes are:

1. Listening to the CD. As you know this is very important in the Suzuki method. Children must listen the CD at least once a day, or more. I have a copy of the CD in our car so whenever we are in the car we listen the CD. Sometimes I play it while the kids eat breakfast or dinner, or while A is doing homework or drawing.
2. Technique. This means some warm ups exercises. There are several that we have learned and we try to vary the 'menu' so big A doesn't get bored.
3. Note Reading. This is an assigned page(s) from The Music Tree book 'Time to begin'. It contains music reading exercises and I usually just mark in the chart how many times did we practice certain page (3X= 3 times).
4. Songs Review. The name of the piece is listed so we can note which hand(s) did we practice with and how many times.
5. New Piece. We have special homework whenever we are learning a new piece, for example, work on certain line, or make sure to keep the finger positions in certain way, etc. This is more specific to the piece we are learning.
6. Other. This is for a different activity we did, such as music games, or a 'dessert piece', this means a piece that is not in the book but the child is interested in learning. For example, during the Winter semester we did 'Jingle Bells'.
And I like to add at the end of the page a 'smiley face' to show to the teacher and to big A the mood we had when we were practicing. It seems silly but somehow 'smiley faces' and stickers have a very powerful motivational effect on kids :).

Here is big A working on one of The Music Tree books.

You already know the 'Hundreds Chart', we will be requesting a new one to our teacher, so far has helped us keep the mood up, so we'll use it as much as possible :).

Activities.

Some extra activities we do come from 'The Puppy Packet', which is a box with flash cards for different games to practice different things . This packet can be used by any student learning music, since is not exclusive for the Piano instrument.
Take a peek at our packet.

This is the packet open. I like that it comes with a handy dandy container easy to access and keep the flashcards organized. It has a book with the instructions on how to play the different games. The quality is very nice. We just added a dice to our package as sometimes when big A and I start arguing on how many times should he practice a piece, if we do not agree on a number, we agree on rolling the dice and practice as many times as he rolls. Is a fair resolution for both of us :).

To your right you can see the grand staff, it comes with some plastic, colorful, fun, BUT (the best feature of ALL) is MAGNETIZED chips, which makes the clean up after the game so much faster and attractive for the little ones to help!
Here is the 'Magic wand' (included in the packet), that makes possible such magic.

Now, I am not going to lie to you, this packet was NOT cheap. I waited a long time until I decided to purchase it, I tried to see if I could buy it second hand first but after months of checking craigslist and the local music stores, the opportunity never arrived. So I went ahead and bought it online at a website our teacher recommended.
I figured that little A could use it as well as she will be starting Suzuki in a year and a half or so.

And this is how the Puppy Packet is closed. Is nice that it was designed in a briefcase child size format so the kids can carry it themselves.
This box fits perfectly fine inside the piano bench.


Big A's favorite games are:

- Musical Scrabble
- Musical Go Fish
- Blue, Yellow flash cards.
- Rainbow flashcards.

Today we had a great practice. One of big A's friends just started piano lessons as well, he came to our house for a playdate and big A played Cuckoo for him, his friend was amazed and encouraged.
I am hoping that this also encourages big A to perform more for others. I bet is nice that one of his best friends is taking piano lessons as well, one more thing they will have in common :). And is nice because, up until now, he did not know anyone personally that had to go to piano classes, so now he knows he is not the only one among his friends :).

I hope you find this post useful, please let me know if you have any questions and feel free to share with us your child's favorite music games.

Happy practicing and until next time!