SM Journey in the Oregon High Desert

My name is Sherry and I am Momma to a wonderful little girl named Maria. She is 3 years, 4 months old now. She loves music and we have been looking forward to starting with SM for quite a while now. We are also expecting a new little learner in October! We got our keyboard about a week ago and she has been having lots of fun just playing around with it.

Our SM package arrived on Friday evening and it took me a few days to get everything set up. I told Maria that we would start on Monday with the lessons. She has been very excited about it!! We ordered the 12 month Starter Package, but the stickers, flashcards, and note alphabet chant did not arrive with the rest of it. We improvised with the stickers and flashcards. I went through the "share" section and printed off several things from there and made my own stickers. (we tried to do a few things without the stickers on the keyboard, but she is definitely not ready for that yet) I used some large icons of the Solfege pictures and made flashcards too. I'm not sure if I should add the written words (Do, Re, etc) to these, but hopefully the actual flashcards and stickers will arrive soon and we can just use these.

We both started out following the week 1 curriculum. She has done really well with recognizing the SM symbols for Do - Ti. I think she knows them well enough from using the BK Little Musician program that she could transfer that knowledge to these symbols. Anyway, when I asked her to put the flashcards in the right order, she could do that right away. I played along as she found each of the correct cards and we sang the note. Then I traded places with her and she played along while I found the correct cards. She thought that was great fun, especially if I "messed up" and put the cards in the wrong order. She liked fixing my mistakes! She was able to find all of the notes on the keyboard as I found the card.

Then we played the guess the key game. She had been looking forward to playing the "spider game" after watching videos of other kids playing it! It did move too quickly for her to keep up, so if there is a way to slow it down for her at first that would be great! She did like to watch me play it though.

Next we tried playing "Hot Cross Buns". She really didn't want to watch it when we listened to the computer playing it, I think that was because it just shows the sheet music instead of the cute icons moving up the screen. She wanted to play along. So we started with the right hand only mode. But for some reason, the notes that we played didn't make any sound. We could only hear the left hand from the computer playing. I could tell by looking at the icons moving whether we were playing the right notes, but she couldn't hear it. That made it hard to sing along too. She got discouraged with not hearing it and didn't want to play it anymore. I will have to play around with it to figure out how to make the sound work correctly.

All in all, we are both enjoying this! Looking forward to actually learning how to make music!!

By the way, are we both supposed to be following the same curriculum? And where will I find the requirements to participate in the recitals? I would like to start getting ready for that as soon as possible. I have a feeling that I will be a little busy around October and we will have to take a break for a few weeks! But we want to keep up as much as possible! I am assuming that we are already a little behind since we are just starting too.

Here is an update after a week of using SM.

Sherry:
I have been able to play most everyday without a three year old helper for only a few minutes at a time. On Hot Cross Buns, the best score I got was 37/37 with a 2. Usually, I get a 37/37 with a 3 or 4. If Maria is helping, I don't do so well!
I am doing better on playing Hanon exercise, but the white cat/ black cat is still hard when I try to play both hands especially. I usually play through one or the other nearly every time I walk past the keyboard. They are handy things to practice since I don't have to wait for the computer to start before I practice them.
On the Note Duration game, I made it to level 5 and got a 145. That game seems to be my biggest problem.
On the Guess Key game, I made it through the 4th tree and got a 693. I have only played past the 4th tree once and it was a lot harder when it started giving me # and flats. Is there a way to start the game on a higher level so I can get more practice with the # and b??
Also, should I move on to other songs since I pretty much have HCB memorized? Should I wait until I get the side number down to 0?

Maria:
She loves putting the cards in order frontwards and backwards. She loves playing along while I put cards in order. She doesn't hit the right note when she sings, but she always gets the right name and tries to sing a higher pitch(?) each time. And I noticed that when she is putting the notes in order backwards she sings Ti, La, So, Fa, etc she still sings each one a little higher than the one before instead of going lower. I try to sing louder than her so she can hear, but... She likes the sound of her own voice too much!
On Guess Key game, she has sat still long enough to get through the 2nd tree! I think the highest score she got was 73.
On, HCB right hand she got 11/15 with a 43 for her best score. With me helping her she got a 15/15 with a 26.
Is the Kingdom of Tune something I am supposed to download or do I need to purchase it separately? I am nearly through reading You CAN be a Musician and I am learning a lot.

Thanks, Hellene and all the others at SM! We are really enjoying this!