You might notice this is the second review I have done for KinderBach with the TOS Crew. The first one was a few years ago. I was not very enthusiastic because we did not have a piano or keyboard at the time. I mean, how can you learn piano with out a piano? I also tried to push my younger children (4 & 5) into doing it while trying to discourage the two older girls. I kept telling the older girls that it was for younger children and not for “big” girls their ages (they were 9 & 7). The girls all enjoyed the lessons well enough when we did them (the newly 4-year-old-at-the-time boy not so much). Once our review time was over, they weren’t asking about the lessons. All of this was my fault!
Here we are, two years later. All of us are older, hopefully a bit wiser (especially the Mama!). We now have a keyboard (received it shortly after that review a few years ago) and most importantly an enthusiastic Mama. We have all loved working on KinderBach. We have so much fun and are learning so much.
The older girls (11, 9, and 7 now) are thoroughly enjoying doing the lessons at their pace. They complete many of the lessons at a time. They aren’t working on all of the coloring activities; they don’t need that reinforcement. They don’t feel it is baby-ish or beneath them. For girls this age range, this can be a very big deal! After I took this picture, I realized I should have them facing the computer and not needing to turn around–duh! It works so much better this way. 🙂
My younger set, 6 year old son and 4 year old daughter, works through the lessons together at a slower pace than their older sisters. They love doing all of the coloring and activity pages with each lesson. The pace they are working at is still a bit faster than the program is set up, but that is mainly because they are doing several lessons at once. They are soaking all of this up and asking for more. In the earlier lessons, they liked all being on the keyboard at the same time–each one at their own “Dodi’s house”. As the lessons progress, they are getting individual time at the keyboard.
Each lesson is set up with four parts. You can do each part one at a time spending at most 15 minutes (the video is more like 5 minutes). My little ones have been doing one full lesson in each sitting. We typically cover two new lessons a week with any extra time available to them spent reviewing/playing with previously learned concepts. They haven’t been needing the review, but enjoy “practicing”. They love playing songs along with the lessons. There is a very good reason I am not allowing them to move through quicker: it is because I usually don’t have the accompanying pages printed yet.
I am seeing (especially this second, more careful look) how many of the lessons are doing much more than teaching beginning piano to my littler ones. They are comparing, learning colors, left and right, numbers and letters and so much more. I have not been doing much intentional school with my newly turned 4 year old daughter. The things she is doing and learning with
KinderBach are the same things I would be doing in a preschool program with her. Only there is much less prep time (really, I just need to print the whole activity book for each level at once) and it is so much more fun for her.
Our only complaint throughout our review period is how difficult it is to work the lessons in. We only have one computer! With 5 interested and eager learners, that can make things a bit difficult. There are a couple of solutions to our problem. The videos are being made compatible with handheld devices–iPad, iPod Touch and many others. We have an iPod Touch and have watched the videos from the earlier levels with no problems. Often, videos cannot be viewed on our iPod, but the new type is completely compatible –yay!! I have an issue with the size of the screen on my iPod, my children do not. I think this is another reason we need an iPad, purely for school purposes, of course! KinderBach is also
available on DVD! This is probably the option we will continue with. I can use these with our little ones now, and have it on hand for our even littler one (or future littler ones).
Each of the 6 levels of
KinderBach is available for $40.45 each. This includes a DVD of the video lessons, a CD with the PDF activities and parent guide, and a CD with karaoke style tracks to play along with the songs learned in that level. For a
greater value, there are bundles available ranging from $55.95 to $222.88. Many of these bundles include one or more of the song sets. The song sets (Everyday, Patriotic, Christmas and Hymn Songs) are available individually for $23.95. The very
best value is the online membership option. This can be month to month ($19.95 billed monthly) or pre-pay for the full year at $95.88 (this breaks down to $7.99/month but is a one-time payment). The online membership option gives you access to all of the lessons in all 6 levels (a 7th level is in the works!) and the accompanying PDFs for activities, etc.
There is an option to check out the first few lessons free online. When you are ready to purchase, the folks at KinderBach have graciously given me a coupon code to share with you. With this code TOScrew2012 you can save 30% off your order. This code is good until February 2, 2013.
I did not get into how this compares with other beginning piano programs, because I have no experience with them. There are other Crew members with greater piano lesson experience who may share from that point of view. Check out the other Crew member review of KinderBach on the Crew blog.
As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I received access to KinderBach in order to write this review. I was not required to write a positive review; all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
