Leonie 4.5 years old - Level B

We began learning with SM when Leonie was almost 3 years old. We did quite a few things: played all songs with both hands from Introductory Songs and some from nursery primer and nursery 1. But unfortunately we didn't do much finger exercice, as she didn't like it... And also with the playing, I think it maybe was too much for her, because she didn't like to play and almost never wanted to exercice.

I am in a similar situation. I bought SM for my daughter for her 2nd birthday and she would play with it, mostly nursery primer songs but we didn't do it frequently enough. As she grew to 3 years old I noticed that she started being more interested and was able to do more, she concentrated on more introductory songs and mastered some of them on level one. But she hated doing finger exercises, she now loves to do them. I loved hearing about this in your post because I know I am not alone! That's also why I am sharing my story so you know you are not alone.

I decided to start over with her though and follow the guidelines as I think she will learn more that way and I can actually see her progress! I started on Level B, but she usually wants to do more, play more songs, so I look at level C to give her a little more to work on. She loves it so much I have to tell her that it is enough for the day.

We play together which is also fun...she pretends to teach me and I teach her.

Hello Christine,

Thank you for your reply. Yes, it was not so funny, when our daughter didn't like to play or to exercice...
But after we made a little break and a new beginning with the academy, it goes very well for her. Now she also likes the finger-exercices

But I see, you are also making very good progress!

Best regards
BK

Hello Hellene

I didn't update last week, because we had so many things to do, but we still were exercising about every second day. I think, she makes good progress.

She knows how to play Hot Cross Buns by heart (but doesn't like to play it with the metronome, that gives her much stress) and is learning to play the French Song with hide-mode.

We have two new songs, that she exercises every time:
This Old Man
best results are:
R1 56/60 T49
L1 27/32 T30
P1 73/92 T96

and Musette
bests results:
R1 32/37 T31
L1 28/33 T37

Here it's very hard for her to play Mi-Fa-So, etc with both hands together, she always wants to use the same fingers and then plays other /wrong keys. So she quickly gives up playing with P1... I think she has to exercise her fingers first.

She does a lot of finger exercise, Do to So and with "jump" 5-7 times with both hands. She likes that a lot! Maybe we will start also Hanon, this she never liked, but who knows...

The French Song she Plays with P1 44/48 T34 and learning by heart with P1 now.

Every time she also plays the Guess Key game.
Well, that's it. Now, that I have written it, it seems so little, although when we exercised, she always wanted to play about 20-25 minutes before getting tired.

I told her about the butterflies! Now she wants to play her two new songs for the winter recital.

Best regards,
BK

Hi Hellene,

I haven't written for quite long now, we had so much things going on. I went back to work, so this past 2 weeks we had to find a new rhythm for things at home. Like piano practice

Nevertheless we did practice:

- Leonie played Hanon with both hands (and that was a very good exercice, because now she can play Musette with both hands!

I have to help her bit with her left hand



- She played the French Song and learned it by heart

- She played This old man, best result P1 88/92 T67 - should she begin to play this with P3 and P5?



- Musette, here best result was P1 69/70 T60



- In the guess key game she played 60 seconds instead of 30, best result was 91 points.