Spackman Kids

We got Soft Mozart a few weeks ago but with my brother's wedding and Christmas we haven't put any serious practice yet. Yay for school starting on Monday.

I have three children that will be using Soft Mozart. Peter is 5.5. He is learning "Ten little Indians". His highest score is P3 36/40, T 80. Soft Mozart has been great for him- he is really motivated by the idea of getting a high score. Since I have had a hard time getting him excited about piano, this is a lifesaver.

Helen is 3.5. She is learning "Mary had a little Lamb". Her highest score so far is P3 55/63, T. 311. Let's just say that she loves to stop and smell the roses. She gets excited about seeing butterflies and spiders every time she practices, which is cute, but hardly conducive to fluency, lol. She was doing really well color-coded things I was doing with her before, so I'm thinking SM will be more of a supplemental thing for her. She loves it though, so I'm happy to have lots of options to keep things fun for her.

Patrick is 2, and he loves doing whatever his older siblings do. We haven't started learning an actual song yet, but he loves to play "Guess Key School" and laughs when he sees the leprechaun (is that what he is?) pop out with his basket. His highest score so far is 15 in 2:36.

Starting Monday they will be practicing every day.

Yes, I have tried to teach Peter piano off and on for a couple of years now. P3 is better for my kids because they like to see what is coming next and how long they are supposed to hold the notes down. On P1 Peter and Helen were both frustrated and tended to play the note quickly several times before it was time for the next note. I'll start with P1 for Patrick and see how it goes, but because we are doing Little Musician every day too, I don't think we will stay there long.

So, I was all excited to start school and the last couple days have been sick days. That's the way it goes. I scheduled a talent show for our local homeschoolers, so that will give my kids a recital opportunity and some good motivation for me to get them practicing.

This is a video of my 2-year-old playing Hot-Cross-Buns and the Guess Key School game. I need to get a video of my 3 and 5-year-olds now.

One thing we have struggled with a little is that when they don't play the note long enough, they have to play it again to progress through the song. That's all fine except when they see that a note will be repeated a few times and they just go to town repeating the note over and over again. We're making progress with that, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that has struggled with that. My solution has been to tell them to hold the note down until they see a butterfly.