Caregiver Tip, Practice, Practice Tool, Student Fun • January 11, 2019
Last week the kids gathered to a play-in and parents were treated to a special class with Miss Ruth on how to practice effectively, and it actually was all fun and games! All instruments of Sprouts played together (violas, meet violins and cellos!) to explore their pieces, games, and just be silly making music together.
In the parent class, we explored many aspects of practice, but as I was at Target last night I came across an item we talked about using practice sessions: puzzles!
There are so many types of puzzles and ways to utilize this game to organize your practice! The puzzles I found last night are on the simpler side but flexible. Each puzzle has three parts, a head, body, and torso section, and you can mix or match the final puzzle you create! One is animals from different climates and the other is people of different occupations.
How do you use them? Maybe have them represent 3 musicality sections of practice and each time they work on a technique or repetitions of a section, they get to choose one of the puzzle pieces. Maybe on a very short practice day, the three sections could represent the 3 areas of your practice pie: note reading/rhythms, musicality, and performance. Or if you leave it up to them, they may create a crazy alligator-meerkat that has two bodies because they want to play their four favorite pieces today!
Do you have a favorite way to use puzzles in your practice? Or another favorite tool?
Caregiver Tip, Practice, Practice Tool • January 18, 2019
Stickers Aren’t Just for Charts
We are all familiar with using stickers on a skills or activities chart. Made your bed? Brushed your teeth? Place the star on the chart under that category! And that works for many students. We’ve also used stickers on a...
Practice, Teacher Tip • February 22, 2019
Teacher Tip: Consistency!
Friends, we are very excited to have the wonderful Ms. Grazzia Sagastume share with us a practicing tip about consistency! As a very wise Sprout parent said to me this week, "We know the first practice after we take a...
Caregiver Tip, Suzuki Method • April 26, 2019
Environment + music
One of the incredible phenomenons we experience in the music world is seeing a younger sibling grow and take to a musical instrument very quickly, maybe even faster than their older sibling did. It is due to many factors, but...
