Music Theory for Young Children, Bk 2 (Poco Studio, Bk 2)

This is probably my favorite theory series for young beginners. Unlike some of the other preschool piano theory books, it doesn't have a lot of writing or tracing, instead including stickers to answer questions. As a result, theory activities can be done in gtoup classes without being overly time consuming, and are more likely to be completed.

This series is the best theory book series for young children that I have found in 20 years of teaching. I have considered / looked at over a hundred theory books for my super young students. It does teach both the American English and British English version of the note names, it has stickers and tracing. (I do tend to reduce the number of times they have to trace or write freehand depending on the age and attitude of the child. This includes how many times they need to write the notes, with my super littles it can take them a lot longer to do that then do several pages where the stickers are available.)The itchMy one reservation with this book is when they introduce eighth rests/quaver rest on page 26/27 it is presented as a quarter rest/crotchet rest and the time assignment as a whole beat instead of a half beat.the next time you see it's notes they are presented with the correct name and the correct time assignments so I'm not sure if it was just a printing mistake on pages 26 and 27. For me, I simply make sure that I changed those pages in the way they're labeled before I send the book home with a student. Some students go faster and do more than what I present in lessons so I make sure it's fully prepared for them when it walks out the door.Possible hitch depending on your personal preferenceThere also isn't a lot of instruction on the page. I know some teachers/parents may not like that. I actually liked it because it also helps teach the parent to tune in during the report at the end of the lesson. I have also found it to be great for kids who get easily overstimulated.Overall opinionThis series as a whole has been a delight to use with my littles (for definition purposes my littles are classified, 3 years old to 7 years old) and this theory book is lovely - it goes quite a bit further than you would expect into theory with young children. It really does provide a good and solid foundation. If you have students that will eventually to any type of testing such as ABRSM, I would highly recommend this book.This series of theory books is the first book I give my 3 to 5 year olds. Because of the stickers, it seriously gets them hooked on theory from day one. Prior to having access to the series and two three books containing stickers for littles whose handwriting may be non-existent or developing theory was not enthusiastically received. With the series of books, my younger students are enthusiastic about doing their theory and showing me what stickers they found that week.This is the best theory book I have found for really young kids in 20 years of teaching.

In South east Asia we have a wide variety of books for teaching kids and this is the easiest to use because the colour schemes and illustrations make it easy for the kids to figure out even after they have forgotten the teacher’s instructions. As for the crotchet/quaver rests on pg 26-27 pointed out, the mirror image of the quaver rest is an older form of the crotchet rest and it is not a printing error in the book. (You can see perhaps why people needed to change to the squiggly form of the crotchet rest after a few hundred years of confusion, I know I had difficulty with the mirror image one when I was 5 years old)