How often does your 4th grader practice their instrument?

[Anonymous]

My 4th grader just started playing the violin this year. She never wants to practice. Not sure what we should enforce at home. How many times/minutes a week does your 4th grader practice their school instrument?

[Anonymous]

10 minutes about 3-4 Days/week

The teacher recommended every day but said she understands if you don’t get to it daily.

I’m a little strict about it because I want DD to know that if she signs up for something, she has to see it through and actually make an effort!

[Anonymous]

Our teacher requires 5 days/week, 10-15 minutes at a time (aiming for 60 min/week), with a practice log to fill out that parents need to sign. My kid has been doing okay with that -- she skips one weekend day and one night where she has a busy schedule. She usually does it either while we are cooking dinner or immediately after dinner, so it's not interrupting other things.

[Anonymous]

Never

[Anonymous]

Does she have a specific teacher you pay or is she just involved with the ES orchestra?

If she doesn't have a teacher you should get one and work the amount of practice out between the three of you.

Long ago, we didn't realize how little instruction went on with our ES orchestra. We kept asking DC to practice. DC would play the song they were learning in school once, announce that was what it should sound like and that they were done. It sounded pretty much like the song to us but thought practice should be longer. DC, a fairly compliant person, resisted loudly. Eventually, we figured out that DC had spent 30 minutes going over and over the same song during the school day and doing nothing else with their instrument. Getting a teacher helped immensely, for a couple of years, until DC "only" made the select orchestra in MS.

[Anonymous]

Never. If she was interested in practicing, we would hire a private teacher. They don't learn anything at school. But she's not that into it.

[Anonymous]

Twice a week for about 1/2 hour

[Anonymous]

Piano, She has to play each song through 2 times unless, it is perfect then one time. Usually 6 days a week as it is tied to being able to play on her video game devices. Right now she only has about 1-2 songs a week. She was burned out before on 30 minutes and 6-7 songs but, we changed teachers when we moved and now she is re inspired.

[Anonymous]

Op here. Just the ES orchestra. No private lessons yet. I'm actually surprised at how much she has learned in a few short weeks, but not ready to go private unless she absolutely loves it.

I'll try and enforce it 3-4 days a week.

[Anonymous]

We aim for 10 min per day but usually end up with about 30 on Saturday and 30 on Sunday instead (practice sheets are due on Monday). In other words, we aim for the total number of minutes expected by the teacher (I think it's important for her to do what the teacher expects), but end up (regrettably) doing it all at the end of the week.

[Anonymous]

It is better to do 10 min daily than cram over the weekend. There is more of a benefit to daily practice than to a couple times a week of long practice. And if the child gets serious they have to practice daily in which case they have developed that habit.

[Anonymous]

We did almost exactly this plan with piano many years ago. Our DC regretted it as HS started. DC did not regret the 1-2 songs a week nor how long it took to learn harder songs only playing them twice. What DC regretted was not cycling through older mastered songs to develop a group of songs that DC could truly play well. At recitals, DC always sounded great and got lots of compliments but as music became something that could be done at school or with friends, DC's repertoire was embarrassingly small compared to other true students of the piano. Piano ended abruptly for this reason.

It shouldn't be hard to add a warmup to practice of playing two or three mastered songs from the past six months or so that at any time the student has at least 12 but maybe as many as 20 songs they could play for their grandparents even if they aren't polished enough for a recital.

"Piano, She has to play each song through 2 times unless, it is perfect then one time. Usually 6 days a week as it is tied to being able to play on her video game devices. Right now she only has about 1-2 songs a week. She was burned out before on 30 minutes and 6-7 songs but, we changed teachers when we moved and now she is re inspired."

[Anonymous]

It's better to practice every day for shorter periods than longer, less frequent period, because there's muscle memory involved.

My 7 year old practices for 30 minutes 6 days a week, but she's been playing for 4 years, so it's really the minimum at her level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:10 minutes about 3-4 Days/week

The teacher recommended every day but said she understands if you don’t get to it daily.

I’m a little strict about it because I want DD to know that if she signs up for something, she has to see it through and actually make an effort!

Same amount here.

[Anonymous]

She will get the best return on her practice if she practices once within 24 hours of the lesson. When I was learning an instrument, if I waited too many days from the lesson to start practicing, it would take me longer to make significant progress.