TOS Crew Review: KinderBach (2010)

Kinderbach is an early learning (about ages 2 to 7) piano course, founded by Karri Gregor. She was looking for an age appropriate music program for her young children, unable to find one, she started teaching her own lessons. 150 students later, she had to give up her lessons after her husband lost his job and they had to relocate. Later, after digging up some old tapes of the lessons she decided to start up again. Using her husband's wise advice, she stared the DVD program so more could be reached. The rest is history. You can read her bio here.

We previewed the online web video edition, also available at the website, as a less expensive option then the DVDs. My children, boys, ages 6,7, and 8, watched intently each lesson and completed the associated worksheet. With the use of a basic keyboard, we followed along with the lessons learning about Dodi's house, the train station, simple music theory, sing along songs, and some percussion instruments.
The lessons are short (around 5 minutes) and complete one objective at a time. There are 4 short lessons a week. The intro lesson lets you know what you need each week. The pages with the various activities - color, cut, and paste mostly, are right on the lesson page. Karri's sweet voice sings the songs in the program. The program slowly builds concepts as it is meant for younger children. My older boys were able to complete a week at one sitting.
Not being musically minded, we all enjoyed the lessons and did learn quite a bit, completing only level one. The activity sheet are easy to use and have age appropriate activities. The curriculum is 2 years long or 60 lessons. You can preview the first two lessons for free online.

NEW THIS YEAR! Is a craft book to accompany Level 1.  Included are great items to reinforce the lessons. The crafts are meant to be done by the parent as object lessons for the children.  These were created with the home teacher in mind and use simple to obtain material: card stock, Velcro, pictures for a collage, etc.

A copy of the syllabus is available at: http://www.kinderbach.com/Classroom/curriculum.html

To learn more about Kinderbach and to try out the first two lessons online for free, CLICK HERE.

TOS Crew Review: Jean Welles Worship Guitar Class Volume One

We received for review Volume One of Jean Welles Worship Guitar Class.  Volume one includes a DVD with booklet and book to accompany it that reinforces the DVD lessons. It also contains all the music with the copyright information for the songs used in the program.

The DVD starts with an introduction which in includes Jean Welles experience, which she does have a lot of. Next she goes over the parts of a guitar and teaches you how to tune a guitar.  What I like best about the program is its Christian focus.  She encourages beginning lessons with prayer and ask the Lord to help teach you to play the guitar.  She also recognizes that people tend to be tense when beginning to learn a new instrument. She again recommends prayer to overcome this and to relax.

Part of the first lesson includes where to put your fingers and how to strum to the tune of He's Got the Whole World in His Hands. Cords are introduced one at a time. You do not need to know how to read music to do the lessons in this first volume. You will learn them as you go. Other songs you learn include: My All In All, More Precious than Silver, Take My Life, Lord I lift Your Name on High and a few others.  An extra lesson is included in the back of the book that is not on the DVD that is useful for hand exercise of the left hand.  There is apparently a video to accompany it online on her website. 

Over all this program seems excellent and takes away the hesitation of learning this way.  My son thoroughly enjoyed this program and decided to purchase his own new guitar after doing a few lessons. We will probably add more lessons to our collection as soon as we can.  I would recommend that if possible to supplement with an occasional lesson to help confirm technique (but then if you are not overly serious and you like your progress, then maybe this is isn't necessary.)

To learn more about this program and watch the first lesson FREE online CLICK HERE!

TOS Crew Review: Kinderbach

Kinderbach is an early learning (about ages 2 to 7) piano course, founded by Karri Gregor. She was looking for an age appopriate music program for her young children, unable to find one, she started teaching her own lessons. 150 students later, she had to give up her lessons after her husband lost his job and they had to relocate. Later, after digging up some old tapes of the lessons she decided to start up again. Using her husband's wise advice, she stared the DVD program so more could be reached. The rest is history. You can read her bio here.

We previewed the online web video edition, also available at the website, as a less expensive option then the DVDs. My children, boys, ages 6,7, and 8, watched intently each lesson and completed the associated worksheet. With the use of a basic keyboard, we followed along with the lessons learning about Dodi's house, the train station, simple music theory, sing along songs, and some percussion instruments.

The lessons are short (around 5 minutes) and complete one objective at a time. There are 4 short lessons a week. The intro lesson lets you know what you need each week. The pages with the various activities - color, cut, and paste mostly, are right on the lesson page. Karri's sweet voice sings the songs in the program. The program slowly builds concepts as it is meant for younger children. My older boys were able to complete a week at one sitting.

Not being musically minded, we all enjoyed the lessons and did learn quite a bit, completing only level one. The activity sheet are easy to use and have age appropriate activities. The curriculum is 2 years long or 60 lessons. You can preview the first two lessons for free online.

A copy of the syllabus is available at: http://www.kinderbach.com/Classroom/curriculum.html