Practice Makes Permanent

Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. Just another axiom designed to make moms feel guilty and/or inadequate. According to Dr. Suzuki, not only does your child have to practice "only on the days he eats," but it has to be good quality, too, or you're just developing bad habits. The pressure! My kids definitely aren't the prodigies you see on PBS, but they won't be the ones who later lament the fact that their mom didn't make them practice as kids, I promise you that! On September 15, all of them started a One Hundred Days in a Row challenge. Posting our progress on the blog will motivate me to keep it up, so thanks for being my enforcers! Here are some of my practicing motivators, in hopes that you'll share your ideas with me...



Leaving the instruments out until all the practicing is done. It makes the task seem easier if you can get started on it quickly, and the instrument is a visual reminder. Golda likes to go through one book at a time and set each one aside as she finishes it. Her main motivation for doing well is that she doesn't want to hear my footsteps coming toward her room, which tends to happen when a note or a rhythm is repeatedly wrong.

Extreme measures: (no pun intended) practicing at the same time when we're in a hurry. I call this "turbo speed practicing." If it's a day where we're out the door early, at least I feel like we got something done beforehand. It makes for a chaotic ride, though!
Involving friends, as in, "Hey, kids! It's time for music class! Ari will show you how to hold the bow!" That works better than waiting until all the friends are gone because Ari loves to be a teacher, and Freestone loves to have an audience. A friend favorite is "rhythm class," where Freestone gets his Twinkle variation clapping done and all the kids have fun.
Freestone loves to count things. When it's time to practice, I grab a handful of some random item, like crayons or flash cards and each time he does what I ask, he gets one. Coins are a big favorite. He sits on a circular rug and puts a coin on the edge of the rug until the coins circle all the way around. Today, I let him open the package Tiffany gave me. It was a treasure trove of fun ideas. We put the candy corns in the love box one at a time. Tomorrow, we'll use the sugar babies, and the next day, he'll get to turn a page of the Halloween book each time he plays something. Thanks, Tiffany! Inspiration is more fun when it's colorful!

Ari loves to check things off. If I give her a "100 times chart," she'll practice forever, trying to fill in the chart. Ruby's style is to work by herself for awhile, then go through everything with me to smooth out what she's learned. That way, everything gets done twice as many times, once alone and once with me. She gets frustrated if I help her before she's had a chance to work it out on her own.

My best weapon is the Minnie Mouse Board. All the practicing that doesn't get done before school gets written on a dry-erase board so we can keep track of what still has to be done. It's called Minnie Mouse because it lists what, hopefully, are "mini" assignments, if you've gotten most of your work done before school. Now I write homework assignments, reading and class/lesson times on it, too, so everybody knows what to do, when. It's weird what will work and what won't, but the Minnie Mouse Board seems to do the trick. As of now, Freestone is finished with practicing, Xanthe has 10 more minutes, Golda has 20, Ari 18 more, Ruby has 35 more...I can't remember all this stuff without a cheat sheet!

If you're a parent with practicing (or non-practicing!) kids, give me all your secrets. (I can just picture Golda trying to tell me that she's going to become a "non-practicing flutist.") As you know, our bag of tricks has to be refilled daily. With nine days down and 91 to go, I'm going to need some more ideas!