Hi,
anyone have experience bringing kid to playgroup like kindermusik in the morning, then to suzuki violin lesson when the playgroup finishes?
kid able to concentrate during violin lesson?
kindly share your experience thanks.
I’m wondering something similar. I may be making asking for trouble by moving my son’s violin lesson to the slot that immediately follows his gymnastics class lol
yes, that’s the problem, we have a very good time slot now… and the teacher is very busy, i think not possible to change back to this time slot if the move is a bad… one…
kizudo,
how is it?
i can’t help it, but enrolled kindermusik lesson at 9am followed by violin lesson at 10.30am… gosh…
We’re trying it out next week. We’ll do it for a few weeks and then re-evaluate. I want it to work because gymnastics is only 30 minutes and violin only 15. It sure would be nice if my son could handle them back to back. I don’t want to have to leave the house on two different days - especially once winter hits us full force.
When do your classes start?
october 2nd.
sometimes we do kindermusik back to back, when doing a make up class. she is okay so far, but for violin lesson, we 've not tried doing a kindermusik before that. will keep you posted… and keep our fingers crossed.
When is the earliest you can start Suzuki violin lessons?
In my part of the world - Winnipeg Canada - they pretty much refuse to take anyone under 3. At least, that’s been my findings. I’ve had to “settle” for a non-Suzuki teacher (who was trained as a child in the Suzuki method) who believes in early learning (her sisters do YBCR with their little ones). She was quite willing to take my son at age 2, but we chose to wait until now (2.5). Next spring (or maybe next fall) we’ll switch to a Suzuki teacher.
In HOng kong , normally at 3, but this teacher is willing to take my daugher at 2. She is very experienced with young kids like her and my daughter listened to her instructions attentively during lesson. But then, she is not willing to practise at home.
kizudo,
how did it go?
Well…(big sigh)…it was less than stellar…it was actually pretty close to rotten…
As soon as we got into the car after gymnastics (semi-private, just him and his little buddy and the coach) he said “Wets go home, Momma, pweeeeeze???” To which I had to say no to. Then he started whining “No biolin, no biolin”. So, like a good mother I basically told him “Too bad, little boy, you have to!” 
No, seriously, I did make him go to the lesson, but he wasn’t happy about it.
When we got into the studio he seemed happy enough to be there. We had a good start by him holding his bow while I and the teacher sang Twinkle Twinkle, and then the same with him holding his violin (no hands). After that things just went down hill. He lay on my lap, on the floor, on my lap, etc and kept saying he was tired. I know that he was paying attention, though, because later at home he was saying “up, down, around, around” which was one of the exercises she wanted us to try at home. The afternoon at home was CRAZY. He whined and cried pretty much the entire first hour after his nap.
We’re going to try it again next week with gymnastics starting 15 minutes earlier than this week. I’m hoping that more down time between the lessons will be beneficial. If not, we’ll have to go back to doing them on separate days…or, dropping one of them.
oh… okay… hmmm… i still have not tried going to formal music lesson after playgroup. the last week i did playgroup back to back. so, i can probably skip the playgroup this coming saturday and just go to violin lesson.
does he hates the violin when you take it out for practice at home? my daughter calls it 'biolin 'too…
Yes, he still likes the violin at home. We only take it out every other day or so and we keep the “session” short. The other thing is that he is only 2.5 years old…he may still be a bit too young. I don’t know. Maybe there’s a good reason that Suzuki teachers only take 3 year olds. (big sigh) I just don’t want to be THAT parent who stresses their child out by being involved in too many things.
These are good books that have helped me tremendously when I have bad violin days…, "helping parents practice’ by edmund sprunger and "first class tips for suzuki parents’…
Good luck…
Yesterday we attempted the double class thing again. This time we started 15 minutes earlier with gymnastics (we only have this flexibility because the coach is only coming in that day for us) which gave us about 45 minutes between classes - 15-20 minutes to have a snack and 15-20 minutes to get to the next class. It was MUCH better this time. He did exactly as the violin teacher asked and he lasted the entire 15 minutes of lesson time! AND, we had a great afternoon - no whiny little boy like last time! So, one good day, one bad day…we’ll see what happens next time
Glad it went better this time for you. In November one of our make up violin classes is an hour after his soccer class. I’m not looking for that!
@ kizudo
good to hear that the violin lesson went well.