Submitted by Pamela Rezach, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
Idea posted August 4, 2003
Your students will love Recorder Karate, and you will too! No doubt about it. Something I do to get their families involved is have a night class for the parents. (The children can come, but my attention is given only to the parents during these sessions.) We meet one night a week for one month. The class goes between 1 and 1 1/2 hours, depending upon the parents' wishes. (Oftentimes, the parents have ordered themselves a recorder and they practice with their children at home.)
We do the same things in the parents' class that we do in regular class, but I am able to go a bit faster with parents - usually. I do this to teach the parents how their children should be practicing. Some years I've had parents who really succeed, other years the parents have a hard time, but every year they say how much it has helped them to understand all that their children are doing when they play an instrument. It's a fun way to let them know how their child should be practicing. They become knowledgeable parents that find out there's more to practice than making a bunch of noise.