Puzzles + Practice

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?