Creative Ideas and Auxiliary Games for Efficient Practice 

There are days when practice works just fine, everyone is happy and you can keep things straight and forward as assigned by the teacher. And then there are those days when child does not cooperate, or you are running out of patience, it is late and you only have 20 minutes to get practice done, etc. On those days you can use some of these ideas so that things stay light and interesting. They are in no particular order, and you need to adjust for older kids. Please remember that in general less is more, do not lose sight of the big picture, and welcome outcomes without judgement. Practice is not only a verb, it is also a noun and a frame of mind!

1. Puzzles: After each thing the child does during the practice session put a piece down in a puzzle (listening always counts as one piece). If it is a large puzzle, it may take you a few sessions to complete it.
2. What do we do today? Write in small pieces of paper each of the assigned exercises/reviews/scales/tonalizations, etc that the teacher gave for that week. Hide pieces of paper in the room where you and your child practice. The child goes around the room searching for the papers, and each time he finds one he plays only that one thing. When my kids were young this one was one of their favorite games!!
3. Musical Antonyms: If parent says “legato” child plays “staccato”, if parent says “piano” child plays “forte”, if parent says “at the frog” child plays “at the tip”, if parent says “allegro/presto” child plays “adagio/largo”, “eyes open” child plays “eyes shut”, if parent says “play against the wall” child plays “in the middle of the room”
4.  Playdough: make small balls of playdough with thumb and index, thumb and pinky, thumb and middle finger, etc and then compare each of the balls to see which ones are rounder. Soon you will see which fingers need more training (this is for dexterity)
5. Rice in a Bowl (or lentils, garbanzo beans, etc): Transfer grain by grain from one bowl to another one a finger at a time (thumb and index, thumb and ring finger, etc) This helps with fine motor skills for young kids. Also trains round fingers.
6.  Flash cards day: (note cards or rhythm cards) read flash cards, organize them from highest to lowest, make arpeggios, come up with rhythms, spell words w/them, etc.
7. Singing: are you sick? the day ended and you just remembered you have not practiced? Then just get the instrument out of the case and sing to it! You can have your child sing his/her review pieces or you can also take turns singing together, one phrase each, or 2 measures at a time, etc.
8. Deck of Cards: Assign value to face cards and jokers (each face card could be an activity, a parent turn, singing, etc, jokers could be “take a break”, or “practice is over”) Decide how many cards will be picked that day depending upon the time you have (12 or 15 cards used to be a good number for us) Place all cards down, have the student pick one and do what that card says. Numbers represent the amount of repetitions of a particular drill.
9. Go for a walk to the park or around the neighborhood collecting small objects to use for counting at practice time (stones, acorns, or other special items) May also go to the kitchen and see what we could use from there (beans, corn kernels, corks, beverage caps, etc.)
10. Mystery Face: On a regular piece of paper draw the outline of a face. Then fold the paper into 3 “sections” in such a way that you can only see one section at a time (forehead, eyes/nose and mouth/chin). After each thing that the student gets done during the practice session he/she adds one facial feature to the face keeping the folded paper as the parent had set it up. At the end of the practice session child gets to open the paper and see how the face looks!
11. Switching Roles: Parent gets to be the child for one day. Parent practices, child sits and comments or corrects as necessary 😉
12. Origami: Choose an origami project your child likes. Each thing the child practices (each bow exercise, each review piece, each scale, tonalization, drill, etc.) child gets to do a fold on the paper!
13. Memory Game: Before you start the practice set all memory game pieces face down. Everything parent and child accomplish during the practice session gives them the right to pick up a pair of cards. If either one starts arguing or losses his/her temper that person loses a turn. At the end of the game see who has more pairs.
14. Lottery: inside an empty jar place a bunch of folded papers with all the drills the student needs to practice that day (scale, bow exercises, reviews, current piece, your choice, hug your parent, sight reading, etc.) Both parent and child take turns choosing each paper one by one until all papers are out of the jar.
15. Dice: use 2 or 3 dice and add or multiply each side to find out how many times you should repeat a drill or hard spot. Also, the number you get may indicate what piece number or etude number you are supposed to review in the book you are reviewing.
16.  Balls or Bean bags: If student seems absent or too tired before the practice session, start by rolling a ball on the floor, or catching a bean bag that comes flying in the air to wake up the mind and alert the senses! Great game for younger kids.
17.  Hang Man: Discover the hidden word or phrase by writing a single letter after each assignment or practice segment during one practice session.
18. Write lyrics or stories for your pieces: Many songs past Allegro in Book 1 do not have lyrics. Come up with some! Otherwise you may also want to write a story for a piece you are working on.
19. Necklaces: after student finishes each thing she is supposed to do at practice, she collects a bead (number of beads she gets should correlate to the number of successful repetitions she has gotten, or number of reviews, etc.) After a few weeks your child should have enough beads to make a necklace/bracelet/key ring, etc. 
20. Use a bell or rattle to replace a phrase (straight bow or curved pinky, tall tree, relaxed knees) or reminder (ringing tone, intonation, spy eyes, etc): parent gets a point if she gets to ring the bell, child gets the point if parent could not ring it because activity was done well.
21. Guessing Game: Parent bows a piece on their shoulder, child guesses what piece it is, then switch.
22.  Movement: If your child needs to move, make sure you include some movement during the review list. When playing Perpetual Motion or Etude you could march, when playing legato pieces sway from side to side, when playing echoes squat, jump on a rest, etc.
23. Registry: Keep track of who lost patience more often. At the end of the month (or semester) decide who did best and reward them with something special or take them out for a special outing.
24. “Power of Holding:” child holds in play position (standing) for an X amount of time (ask your teacher how long it's appropriate for that age) demonstrating beautiful posture. Listen to the silence in the room, breathe. If he/she can hold that beautiful posture with ease you may ask them questions (spelling, geography, math, antonyms, synonyms, etc) to see if posture deteriorates once the mind is not focused on it.

© 2016 Cecilia Calvelo