Introducing Preschoolers to the Violin

Betty Fiddle and Freddy Bow

Let me introduce you to a cute music gem that will help your young child learn and remember the parts about the violin and the notes. This is a coloring activity book introducing the violin, its parts, and beginning music notation. The book is wonderful and could be used in a variety of ways to help young child’s learning! The author, Kendra LAw has a series with all string instruments- you can get the same activity book designed for cello and viola as well.

Overview of the Book:
The book is generally separated into two parts. The first one introduces the violin’s parts. The second one deals with beginning notes and rhythms.

Violin Part Section
The book starts with introducing the parts of he violin. It shows pictures with the parts and then asks a child to do coloring activities in order to learn these parts. It is all done in a fun and playful way. The violin parts are presented as arts of the human body and the bow and violin are given names -Freddy and Betty. Any child, whether they are in music lessons or not would enjoy learning through this music activity book. And myself as an adult…I had my share of fun with it!


Rhythm and Note Section
This is where the book is most helpful! It introduces the different rhythms to a child. Each rhythm is taught in a child-friendly way. There are many analogies with food to explain the rhythm ratios. For example a piece of cake vs the whole cake, etc. There is also a lot of repetition to ensure retention. Each new concept is followed by a coloring activity or counting activity, again to ensure learning and having hands on experience.

Parents who want to expose their preschooler to music:
The bok is a wonderful tool, giving parents lots of ideas about introducing their children to music. Even though the book is about violin specifically it goes to broader concepts and a child
The first part of the book has many ideas about introducing the violin in a child friendly way. Once this is done, it is easy for a parent or a teacher to apply the same information and introduce a different musical instrument in a similar way. The book can become a beginning of a home unit introducing music and the musical instruments.
The second portion of the book is invaluable explaining about the musical rhythms different note values, and providing ways to practice these.

Elementary Classrooms:
It provides wonderful hands on activities for students up to fisrts and event second grade. The students will learn the rhythms and have an opportunity to ractice these rhythms through the music activity book.
Certain parts of the book are appropriate to also use for upper elementary children. These would be the rhythm activities toward the second part of the book.

Young Suzuki Students:
Students who have already started music lessons through the Suzuki Approach and are still in the pre-Twinkle and early Bk1 stage will benefit greatly from this book. The first section of the book will be excellent right as the child is starting lessons, the second one will be helpful between the beginning and mid Bk one just before the child begins reading notes.

This is a wonderful bridge for a child to start exploring the notes but in a fun way and away from their instrument. So needed with some children, as they are eager to read notes, but they are not ready developmentaly to do that yet.