teaching small kids

[klaviristkakatka]

Hello everyone. I have small cousin ( he is four old ). I will teach him but I don' t have practice with so small children. What method I will have to use? Can someone help me please? Thank you.

[jlh]

There are loads of topics and info for this situation here on this forum.

My suggestion is that whatever you do, make it entertaining and have fun!  Little kids learn more when they think they are playing and not working.  Make games up -- like nerf basketball... they get to shoot a basket when they guess intervals correctly, or make some posters up for different musical signs and have them play a game of "slap the sign when I call it".  Of course this is in addition to actually learning hand positions and learning now to play simple melodies and such.  There are some good method books that you can use that have images on the page that the kids can color (like the John Thompson series). 

In summary:  make it fun. 

Josh

[pianistimo]

one thing i learned from a friend.  don't expect a full sized keyboard and keys to be fully comfortable for a child of this age.  get him a casio with a small range - and whatever exciting features appeal to him/her.  just let him/ her play for a while.  then, start introducing little patterns.  interestingly, my daughter loves the patterns in 'a dozen a day' because they are tied to physical movements that she understands (ie skipping, stepping).

she does like to color, etc. - but keeping them at music - i think - means also introducing ideas of meter.  they are like sponges.  if i were to experiment i'd try kodaly's method in combination with my own.  some people like orff.  some - another one - i can't remember at the moment. 

what i like about kodaly is that it has already been systematized - but you can westernize it to songs that kids already know.  must work harder at teaching my own daughter.  sometimes, it's having the time to formulate lessons and stick to them every day.  she saw me writing flashcards for another student and accurately made some of her own (excepting with four lines in the stave).  i guess it's just about playing and drawing and coloring - and not making it 'perfection.'

ps  kodaly has a good book - 'sound thinking.'  it explains a lot.  i think you can buy it at pepper music.

[hyrst]

I think it's an Alfred book, but I have used Little Mozart books with children as young as 2.  I include all sorts of physical games and play the games they want to while inventing ways to include musical concepts.  Ity takes much creativity and thinking on the spot.  It is very demanding. 

But there is a big difference between 2 and 4.  I do think people underestimate what preschoolers can understand.  I find that learning finger independence is the hardest part for them, not the learning of note symbols.

All my 5 year old students have coped fine with Faber & Faber Adventures, sometimes with a little use of physical movement and examples.  Actually, the 4 five year olds I have are learning really well - better than the 7 to 8s.  They don't seem overconcerned about all the other things going on in their lives. 

[rc]

Letting a young cousin on the piano, I took the cover off the front so he could see the hammers and the strings, he though it was pretty neat.  Then I showed him how the pedal lifted the dampers off the strings and we plucked them by hand.  The next lesson was playing two notes simultaniously, to hear how there are different combinations...  It's all playtime.

Another cousin, just a toddler, the lesson was how hitting the keys made sounds.  It was cool, she would play exactly whatever note I played.  Afterwards she played the table and the wall - anything you hit makes a sound! wheeee

It's fun teaching kids, getting into that kid mindset and rediscovering all the little things.