2-year old E - SM and an active toddler!

wow wow and WOW!!
She recognised the notes! Already! amazing Truely that is the whole point! time to get excited She is doing wonderfully and you are clearly making progress.
When she gets to the point where putting the balls in herself is affecting her score, explain to her that if mummy puts the balls in she will get more points and offer to try it just once. That should speed her up but like you said you have accidentally found another benefit of doing it her way!. I read somewhere of people using this program who black out the screen and play the game by ear only, once they get good at it. That sounds like a challenge! Your princess would probably beat me with no visual support!
Glad she liked the sparklebox people. They are a hit here too. I may even let the kids make their own music family people from collage once the novelty of these ones wears off. Actually thats a great idea! I will let them collage the set for each new scale. DO to DO, Re to RE...

lzp11 wrote: OK, so having grown so quickly hugely excited and enthusiastic about soft mozart (SM) I could not wait to start teaching my DD age 2 years and 8 months. However, this is not proving to be a particularly straightforward or easy process (Hellene - I'm very pleased to hear that you enjoy a challenge!!!)
Some background about E: She is a very active and energetic girl who is full of joie de vivre and energy. She has great gross motor skills and does well with physical activities and is fairly coordinated for her age (we do swimming, gymnastics and a music / dance class, riding a balance bike etc and she loves them all). She also is quite emotional - full of highs and lows. She is not a particularly patient person (neither am I!) and if she can't do something immediately then tends to get very frustrated and throws it away. This is particularly evident with fine motor skills - she does not particularly enjoy jigsaws or puzzles.

All what you wrote about your DD here is telling me that she will be perfect in music class: coordination, fine motor skills and emotions… Right brain is leading here definitely!)

E does not really like being told how to do something - she likes to make up her own rules. For example, she has just decided two days ago that she would like to effectively potty train herself. Having refused to go anywhere near a potty up until now, she has all of a sudden been dry for 3 days with only one accident!

Strong will is also big + here…

So SM progress to date - we have tried a number of different activities:
Powerpoint / LR flashcards (do to do): she enjoyed these initially but now says "don't want this one" when I pull up on computer. Maybe because she knows it already - so might help when we have some different orders etc.

Switch for actual cards! I am playing some games with kids that they like very much:
1. Put cards in order and ask her to flip a card, when you are covering your eyes (pick a boo) and pretend as if you are guessing what card it could be. Ask her to do the same for you
2. Place the cards from Re to Re, Mi to Mi etc
3. Flip over several cards
4. Ask her to place the cards in order all by herself forward and backwords
5. Ask her to give you one card at a time
It seems like your DD likes different activities and changes. Give it to her!

2. Do to Do A4 flashcard 'hopskotch' - she enjoys jumping from card to card along with the music. Will continue to try this (but not great for my back! )

Ask her to jump herself and tell you what notes she is visiting

3. Putting flashcards in order. I have tried to get her to do this with occasional success but not a great deal of enthusiasm. She does not really like flashcards for reading either - prefers to use the laptop. I will try sellotaping the cards to a piece of string so that they form a long snake with some that can be hidden and then turned back over (stops her throwing them!).

Woops, I was giving you previous advice prematurely… With kids like that I through all the cards on the table or floor and ask them to give me ‘Door’ or ‘rain’ in exchange for a sticker or music dollar. After that I call cards ‘Do’ instead of ‘Door’ and do the same. After getting familiar with the names of the cards, I ask them to put just 3 cards together – Do Re Mi and then I increase the amount to 5 and 7. All of this happening very gradually for 1 minute here and there.
In fact, this is the best thing in teaching kids at home: it doesn’t have to be lessonlesson – the skills are getting picked up occasionally. When you know, where you have to be, it is not as hard and no time pressure is involved.

4. I often count whilst brushing teeth and have tried 'counting' with music but she's not keen ("No mummy! Counting properly!") She's currently also not allowing me to count in French or Spanish either! Tomorrow will try this walking up and down the stairs.

Your girl doesn’t like to be chased. I wrote about the reasons for that in my blog: softmozart.com/forum/20-hellene-hiners-b...n-your-toddlers.html
Hope, it helps and release your pain

5. Watching me play gentle piano and games. Today E did allow me to play some of the songs from the introductory album plus 1 minute of guess key. She came over once or twice to bash the keys but didn't want to watch. However, this is an improvement as last few days she has not really wanted me to play at all and tried to find ways to stop me (e.g. putting herself into dangerous situations....!)

What a character! But keep doing this: she will get the message that to play piano is something cool.

6. Playing guess key - well we have had a few attempts at the 'Spider game' but she's not very enthused. The best score we've had is 5 - but mostly she refuses to look at the screen or just bashes with both hands. Last time I tried to reward with stickers and chocolate buttons but even these did not work - she actually refused chocolate!

Start with 30 seconds of the game or even less. If she gets less points in exactly the same time, say something like: hm… you’re lost. How sad! And don’t let her play again until she begs for it. She doesn’t like to lose. I also think that to stop the game or practice on the most exciting and interesting part would work with her.

7. Gentle piano - just trying R hand only but again this is a bit of a struggle. She has played HCB a few times

Wow! Few times??? It IS already a progress…

and our best score was 13/15 t78.

Wait a minute. It is incredible score for a toddler!

This was a few days ago on 2nd January but enthusiasm has waned since then. On the 3rd we did HCB 9/15 86 and this included a longish section playing with her feet

She’ll get used to it especially if to consider the holiday disctractions.

I have tried the first half of JB to see if she prefers but not really. She seems a bit overwhelmed by all the stimulation and today refused to play anything at all and would not look at the computer either. I tried the offer of "would you like to play the piano or go straight to bed?", she looked me in the eye and said "Straight to bed"!!

I LOVE kids like this. I have same one…

My fear is that I will create a dislike of music and piano if I keep asking her to try and she doesn't want to - or maybe she just needs to keep trying without criticism if things don't go well - I am just not sure what the best thing is to do. For example with teaching her to read, I had to be super-patient and it is only recently that she's giving me any sign that she's picking it up (suddenly is able to learn a number of quite complex words each week). It is a little demoralising but I want to put her happiness and love of music before everything else.

You are absolutely right! Don’t ask her. Create the incitement and wait, when she would come to YOU and ask if she can do it. As I already suggested, always stop the lesson at it’s most interesting part, even if ‘the lesson’ would last for 3 minutes!

So, any advice greatly appreciated as I feel quite stuck. Sorry it is such an essay.

You are having bright, self-motivated, amazing baby, who is smart and sensitive, great program and your own passion for music education. I don’t see anything to worry about and absolutely sure that everything will be just great.

I like the idea of throwing the cards on the floor and having them pick them up in order! My cards are ALWAYS on the floor maybe this way someone might pick them up accaionally

Mandabplus3 wrote: I like the idea of throwing the cards on the floor and having them pick them up in order! My cards are ALWAYS on the floor maybe this way someone might pick them up accaionally

LOL
Maybe, after cards picking up staff from the floor would become a habit!