Since we teach 2-6 in our school, one level of recorder simply isn't enough. I came up with the idea of using nine beads (white, yellow, orange, green, purple, blue, red, brown, and black) tied around the base of the recorder. Each bead is a level, so students will earn belts white, yellow, orange, green, purple, blue, red, brown, and black for each bead. This totals 81 songs to pass off. This way, by the time our students are through 6th grade, they should be able to play all of the notes and most rhythms.

If they do go beyond this, I plan to take them through the same program using the alto recorder. This way, they will be ready to play most instruments available to them in Junior High.