Week 2 of SoftMozart .// Toddler 28 months

Day 1/ Week 2 of SoftMozart

A. Theory:

We started to learn Do to Do in descending order. It did not go smoothly, my daughter was eagerly reciting the scale in ascending order, and not paying attention to me pointing out the notes in descending order.

So I drew for her new note line with Do, Ti, La... here is the picture:

The things went better, and by the end of the day she was reading gladly this line , and could recite from Do to Fa in descending order by heart.

B. Finger Exercises:

Played Guess the Key Game a little but my DD again kept asking for JB, so we played JB with the right hand...

C. Piano performance with Gentle Piano.

We worked on playing JB using right hand.

D. Historical/ Cultural, using the book "the Kingdom of Tune"

We colored the second picture from the book and reviewed terms : "piano is out of tune"," tuning fork is used to tune the piano", " tuner" and I showed my DD pictures of Grand Piano, and learned the term GP.

Hellene, thank you very much for the kind words.

I fell a little behind with posting our progress, previous post is about our activities on Monday. Here is what we did today:

Tuesday/ Day 2/ Week 2 of SoftMozart

Today I reviewed the activities that we managed to do on Monday and was not very happy with myself. on Monday again we were doing the things that my DD knew already and some of the activities that she was not good at were not done. So I decided to put a goal for myself to focus on our weak spots and on practicing the new material. Today we successfully managed to tackle some difficult for my DD activities and I feel much better!

A. Theory:

We were learning Do to Do in descending order, using new note line with Do, Ti, La... that I drew yesterday.

Also today we put to use SM v.1 Flash cards, as my DD knows already the symbols and their meaning very well and now focusing on the familiar images on the cards. The cards are perfect size for the little hands: not to big not to small. I was putting the cards from Do to Do back and forward, explaining to her that the cards go in this certain order. I tried flipping the cards, while putting only three cards in a row. Today I was mostly modeling for her, what she needs to do. She still does not getting the idea, but we are making steps toward it and I feel very excited thinking that there will come that moment that it will just click for her, and it will be a major developmental point for her. DD watched the activity and participated with the interest. And we will be definitely doing it everyday.


B. Finger Exercises:

Second day in a row my DD was not motivated to play Guess the Key game. The story that she had to help the boy to pick the fruits for Papa did not work. I had to come out with something new. And I did find the solution:

My DD for the past couple weeks LOVES to watch clips of nursery rhymes from this youtube channel:



They are cute and short and classics, so I do not mind them.
So now she needs to pick 6 fruits and then she can watch 1 clip, another 6 fruits - another clip. She was asking to pick the fruits all evening We will see for how long this will work but for now i am very happy.
Our goal for tomorrow is to add playing from Do to Sol using 5 fingers, I showed it to her couple of times, but so far she did not do it even once.
C. Piano performance with Gentle Piano.
Today we focused on playing using Left Hand. Finally! I am posting here a video where Hellene shares some tricks:


I cut the piece of JB song to make it less overwhelming for DD:
(You choose which hand you will use, I pressed "L" left hand, then pressed CTRL and Enter together, played to the point were I wanted to cut and pressed CTRL and Backspace together. Then I pressed "L" again and it took me to the beginning of the song.)

In Left hand part of JB song you start by pressing and releasing note Do and Sol 4 times, that is were i cut the piece for us. I did not allow DD to use both hands playing it, as i saw her couple times successfully reaching the necessary notes. So I showed her that she needed to press and hold the keys for a moment then release. She gave it a try and third or forth attempt was successful, I exclaimed: "That is what you need to do" and chased to the fridge and got her a tiny spoon of strawberry ice cream ( I very seldom allow her sweets ). I told her: "you played the notes correct that is why now you are getting ice cream!" she was like: "I do it again!" Holding my laughter I said: "ok"
She did it, and got a little more ice cream. I know a lot of parents will disaprove this kind of "reward system" but it worked, and we were practicing playing with the left hand... Sometimes it is difficult to explain complex things to a toddler, like why she needs to practice playing with left hand... So i hope you will not judge me.

Well it was a memorable day!

I have been fussing about how I don't have a printer, I am not sure why I didn't think of drawing the notes. Again, great ideas Nadia. I read your post first then I look at the lesson plan without your posts the lesson plan seems like a big mountain ohhh soo difficult to hike.

Great to be starting the journey with all of you together!

I am very happy that my posts are helpful!

There are few reasons why I decided to post daily updates of our activities:

1. to stay organized and keep the track of things done and needed to be done;

2. to have a written record of our activities, as I have a 8-month old baby and I plan to use SM with him as well in couple years,so the written record will be very helpful;

3. to be able to receive advice and help from Hellene, who is a professional and have been teaching piano to kids for many years;

4. to be able to share our learning experience, and cut the path for everyone who will be teaching piano to a toddler.

I really think that keeping daily updates will helps us to succeed.