Listen to the CD songs often and have fun with the activity suggestions given in the music book for each song or your own ideas or ideas from class time. Ideally, listening to the whole CD every day and engaging in a few of the songs each day. We hear most children love to hear the music multiple times each day.

With a parent leading, 5 to 15 minutes 5 to 6 days in a week is ideal. In this time you can do 1 to 5 items on your take home sheet.

Our Sunrise® 1, 2, & 3 children enjoy going over the activities we did in class - sing and act out a song, get the teddy’s walking standing and running, do more coloring on one of our listening pages, or use the teddy bear popsical stick puppets and do a rhythm page in the book.

The Sunshine® 1 and Sunbeams® 1 children love to play something on the piano keys each day - but keep it short and simple. One of our primary goals in the first years is to develop “the happy habit of music learning”!

An example of reviewing a keyboard page is: First have the child play the page with your assistance by counting in a start and use the pointer to assist the child in tracking the notes across the page(same as is done in class); next, tell the child something that went the best “you played all our music street friends correctly! - WOW. ; next mention something they could try to add as we play it one more time such as “can you try to add the correct Rhythm Street friends this time?” play and praise what went well for the rhythm - even if it was just some of the piece; then ask could we play it one last time? if no move on if yes point out one more thing on the page for the child to notice like a dynamic mark “p” for play quietly. Now, count in, play, pointing, praise honestly, move on. All this should be done in about 2 minutes. keep it simple.

Parents, there are many more details being added each quarter, not to worry, in the beginning of the Activities Book we have given you a checklist, highlight the new skills as we progress.

We still like to see the parent leading and increase the time a little in Sunshine 2 and Sunbeams 2 to 8 to 20 minutes 5 to 6 days in a week. Again, in this amount of time you can get 3 to 6 or more items on your take home sheet gone over each time.

In Moonbeams 1 and Mouse-N-Bear 1 & 2 our programs are moving along a bit differently than all the above therefore we desire Parents to lead the At Home Music Time in these levels. Even if you have a very self directing child we need you to be praising and encouraging as well as see that they do not consistently skip certain parts of the assignments.

Some of it is as simple as reviewing the Listening Page completed in our last class meeting:

Simply open the book to the Listening page, ask the child what were two of the stepping patterns we were listening for on this page. The child is looking at the page and how they marked the page. They may be playful and name 2 of the patterns they did not mark. That’s fine. Go ahead and giggle with them. Now expand by having the child try to play them on the piano AND sing together! That’s it! Page reviewed.

We still follow the same pattern as first year in our support of the children playing the piano keys. Parents, there are many more details being added each quarter, not to worry, in the beginning of the Activities Book we have given you a checklist, highlight the new skills as we progress. See the description above for a detailed example in the Sunshine 1 section.

Prerequisites are the above classes respectively.

Do continue to add time to daily practice. Be aware the younger children should still be around the 10 to 20 minutes 5 to 6 days in a week. the older children of 7 to 9 yrs should be allowed to vary 10 to 30 minutes a day - so aim to have these older children get to 20 to 30 minutes 2 times in the week. This grows their ability to stay focused on a single task. Parents should still be involved but as assistant. Phrase any corrections in an either/or question. Like “when you played that through did you notice a legato sound or a separated sound? Which is the music asking to be played?” Some of the older children will be receiving their first piano literature books and may get involved in combining new elements in their piece. Do allow the extra time and praise not only the time but listen for the improvements and praise the child for such good effort.

The goal is a minimum of a 15 minute review each day up to 30 minutes of skill building and songs from the lessons with additional fun playing time. Do go back to songs and exercises form the early pages in your lesson books - the review is fantastic!

Ukulele and guitar students need to build up tolerance to the pressure of the strings on their fingers. So, 5 to 10 minutes twice a day for the first weeks is strongly recommended. After that, 20 to 25 minutes will work well for the beginners. Caution, don’t skip more than 2 days in a row or more than 2 days in a week - the callouses you built up will too quickly slough off.

Children 10 years and younger should always enter with their Parent or responsible adult. For children 7 years and younger parents, or the childs accompanying adult, is required to stay and participate in the child’s class. By the door we have hand gel or hand wipes available for hand washing - all persons must wash hands upon entering. (We also encourage you to do hand washing as you leave the studio.) Families may set Items on a pair of chairs like; coats, backpacks, diaper, bags. If shoes need to come off for your class, shoes may go under your chairs. There are also coat hooks near the entry door which you may use to hang up your belongings. If possible please do not bring in food or snacks into the studio. Sipping cups of water are always welcome. The studio has a water cooler with disposable cups available to all. If it is in the first 3 weeks of a new class please make a name tag for you and your child as you enter your classroom.

Students are expected to arrive on time with all their books each week. We strongly recommend a canvas or zippered bag for student’s music and lesson books. (As a suggestion, the night before pack the music bag with the class materials and place by the door.) Parents of children 10yrs or younger should always enter with their child and make sure they are appropriately settled (wash hands, use rest room, open books to current pages, etc). Parents are always welcome to wait and/or observe their students’ lesson. Students may wait in the waiting area quietly before or after their lesson. We expect parents monitor their waiting children. We will be focused with a student and will not be able to monitor the activity of any waiting students. We expect parents to supervise and teach their children to stay in designated waiting areas and to monitor all their children in the waiting areas and in the rest rooms. The waiting area has chairs and a activity box. Please follow our house rules = If you take something out, put it away. If you make a mess, clean it up.