Week 1 of SoftMozart .// Toddler 28 months

Thank you everybody for a great feedback!

Hellene,
I like the idea of "donation" fruit to the spider. We always teach my DD to be nice and to share with everybody. She still does not have concept: "good guys" / "bad guys".
Also thank you for calling my attention to the thing that indeed she knows first 3 notes better than the rest and now I will focus on the last 4 notes more.

Lovely video. great job Izzabella. She is obvioulsy learning her note sounds quickly! Amazing. Just a thaught she is looking to you and hubby for support and encouragement. Are you behind her just for the video? perhaps if there is room you could move the table out and stand behind or to the side so she has the support she is looking for in the direction she needs to focus. I only notice this as I am a school teacher and I know some kids need to face the board as it takes them too long to re focus as they move their heads. It may not work if YOU need to see the screen though.
Also My daughter learnt the sign language at school and I noticed she started to automatically do the signs when we were learning the solfege notes. I think I will actively teach that too. I am thinking it will be easier for them to sing a favourite song with words and sign in solfege when we are not near the piano. Great activity for the car!

NadiaD wrote:
We haven't started practicing HC Buns yet... I will try to do it tomorrow. I do not expect my DD advance fast with that...

Nadia,

It is perfectly fine if your daughter is taking it slowly with playing HC Buns. You may start playing HC Buns and other introductory songs in front of the kids while singing the solfeggio. The exposure is important. My daughter played HC Buns at 3 year old and played with right hand for (3 weeks). Finally, I tell her that she have to treat her hands equally and give left hand a chance to play too. :huh:

Ladies,
Really appreciate your advices! Karma to you!

I will start teaching my DD Kodaly signs. I was signing with her since she was 6 months, but she forgot a lot of her signs since her spoken language started develope rapidly.

Day 3 / Week 1 of SM curriculum:

Today I was very busy with housework so we did not do a lot. We listened to Music Alphabet Song, did solfeggio hopscotch, puzzle and I did not expected to advance much, but Izzabella surprised me. She asked me for a" Spider in the computer" ... 2 times. She did very good. I let her play a little longer this time , so she had chance to practice her Fa, Sol, La and Ti notes.

Then I started The Gentle Piano game:

I played HC Buns for her but she did not recognized the song and was not to interested in it.
So we tried her favorite "Jingle Bells". She LOVED it and played it 2 times with the right hand from the beginning to the end. Well, it took her more than 5 minutes to go through the song, there were mistakes. I was so shocked that she agreed to play, that I did not record any results. I will read tonight chapter about keeping a record and will start to keep a track of her scores.

It was a good day.

Nadia,

I am so happy to hear about your daughter started 'Jingle Bell' at 28 months old and played 2 times. Wow!! And she is slowly building up her concentration skill from the games and playing Gentle Piano.

Thank you, ttteh

I am also very excited, because I could not talk my DD into doing any finger exercise and I am sure if we just took her for formal lessons at this age we would be headed for disappointment.

But using Gentle Piano my DD is able to play song "Jingle Bells" from the beginning to the end.

Day 4 /Week 1 of SoftMozart

So far today she did it twice.
Her first score R1 : 37 out of 45/ 176
Her second score R2: 33 out of 45/ 142

Also I want to explain details on how we do it.
(I will try to take a video, but I so far I was not successful)
I am pointing out the notes on the screen, and naming them ( this helps her greatly to stay focused), and she finds and presses corresponding notes on the keyboard.
I realized that sometimes she presses the wrong note because at the bottom of the screen appear the note that you need to play next, and sometimes she plays it instead of the one on the yellow line.

I will try to get her more familiar with the HC Buns song (we will sing it together, see on youtube other kids sing it, so hopefully she will fall in love with it The HC Buns is more suitable for us because because part for the left hand there is less complicated than in JB. In JB you need to hit to keys at once with one hand. We haven't tried it yet, but it looks complicated.

I want to say that one more advantage of this program is that even if you have a very busy schedule, it is easy to stay on track : just play couple games for couple minutes, and you did already at least something!

Update:

I did show Izzabella some youtube clips of Hot Cross Buns, we sang it together couple times and after that tried to play it using Gentle Piano.

First we listened to the song and sang it together, then she played it with her right hand her score was:
First one I forgot to record,
Her second one R2 was 15 out of 15 / 33.

Then I added another 7 stickers to the keyboard, for the left hand, placed a sheet of paper, standing between two sets, so that she does not sees notes for the right hand to distract her. We did not advance far... as playing with the left hand striking 2 notes together was very new to both of us... we will concentrate on it tomorrow...

now she is running around the house singing HCB