If you have been reading here for awhile, especially following our reviews, you will notice this is our fourth time (first, second and third) reviewing early music lessons from KinderBach. With a houseful of young learners, I have a new eligible student each time they come up – and we love it! The beginning piano program is best for 3-7 year olds; my preschool and kindergarten learners are the main ones to use it. This time around we are reviewing specifically The KinderBach Online Piano Lesson Membership with Teacher Corner.
My newly turned 4 year old son and his 6 year old kindergarten sister have loved their school time with Miss Karri. The first thing I did was print out several weeks worth of pages from the activity book. There are four lessons for each week, which are easy to find in the very user-friendly interface. When we click to begin the lesson, we can see what other supplies we will need – crayons, scissors, etc. My little ones enjoy these lessons so much we often do more than one at a time or repeat the lesson. They are quite enjoying their time and don’t realize the “work” that they are doing.
Each lesson is given through a short, engaging video followed up with a hands-on activity. As often as I can, I try to add in even more activity. The activities frequently involve gross-motor movement, but my little wiggle-worm needs even more. When there is a coloring activity, we might place colored sheets of paper spread out and instead of coloring an item the color asked by the lesson my son will jump to that color on the floor. He is still practicing and demonstrating what is asked, but in a much more active way. His less wiggly sister sometimes will do both, the coloring (she loves to color!) and the more active option I tweak for her brother. On days his attention span is longer, we do the coloring as directed. I love the adaptability in the lessons.
New to us this time around is the Teacher Corner. There are numerous “extras” found here. Story and song books, printables to extend the lessons (great for classroom or home use) and more. This makes it even easier for me to make this the basis for a full preschool plan for my youngest. It covers all the basics of preschool skills – shapes, letters, colors, opposites. All those things I have worked in with his older siblings through literature-based programs – which would not at all work for this much more active little boy – are found here. The icing on the cake is the piano instruction – truly! I used it somewhat in this way during our previous subscriptions, but it is such a perfect FIT for this young learner.
So how do you get this into your home? KinderBach is available as a subscription. A one-year membership for online access to the video lessons and pdf downloads – including the Teacher’s Corner – is currently $95.88 (reg. $130). This works out to be $7.99/month, much cheaper than a beginning piano teacher! There are also options to purchase the levels (there are six in all and approx. 10 weeks per level) via DVDs and CDs.
