Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. ~Plato
We love our iPad, especially for homeschooling on the go. So, anytime I am able to bring my readers a review of a great app that will enrich your homeschool days, I will jump! We also love music, so I’m especially happy to share this review with you!
KinderBach is well-known for their online preschool music program. While I have not reviewed it before, other members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew have, and the reviewers were quite impressed. The app is brand new though, so this is the first chance the Crew has had to review it.
Here’s some basic information about the app, from their website . . .
KinderBach’s App for iPad or iPhone brings the teachings of Karri Gregor to your device. The KB App features Levels 1, 2 & 3 and offers a year’s worth of entertaining music education for 3 to 7 year old children through video, interactive coloring pages and games. Miss Karri introduces preschoolers to the keyboard characters with stories and fun tunes. Kids will enjoy playing simple songs, identifying music direction and pitch, learning rhythm notes and their beat value. Levels 1 to 3 cover proper hand and finger position, as well as note reading by pattern for voice, and keyboard.
Ben is a bit old for this app (6th grade), but he still humored me by playing around with it. While it was obvious that the app is designed for preschoolers, he is such a lover of music and keyboard, he actually didn’t mind the juvenile nature too much. While he didn’t use it as designed for a preschool student, he did watch several of the video lessons and played a couple of the games. Several times, he made comments about how much he thought “little kids” would love it. Still, I consider this review to be more of an informational review for you, different than most reveiws I write after having used a product or curriculum as designed for homeschoolers.
The basic set up for Kindbach provides video instruction by Ms. Karri, along with a miniature keyboard right on the app (the main reason the iPad is a better choice than the iPod Touch), games, and printables. Unfortunately, the printables are not available for free if you do not have a wireless printer. We do not, so I’m not able to share much about the printables. They are available for purchase at a cost of $1.99 for each downloadable ebook. There are samples on the website.
I’ll show you a few screenshots from our iPad, so you can get a general idea of the set-up. But first, an important tip for you. There are 150 videos peppered throughout the 30 lessons. But they do not automatically download when you download the app. Each video downloads the first time you watch it. Once it’s downloaded, it’s there forever, but if you have an iPad or iPod Touch that is wi-fi-enabled only, you must have a wi-fi connection in order to download the videos for the first time. Even if you have 3G or 4G, I personally would not want to use my data time to download videos. Bottom line — be sure you download the videos ahead of time when you are connected to wi-fi. It will save your data, and your excited children won’t be disappointed on the car ride to Grandma’s when they discover they can’t download or watch the videos.
Now for some screenshots.
Here is the opening screen . . . super simple for you child to use. Just tap on “lessons” or “games” to get started.
Tapping on “lessons” will bring up this screen . . . there are actually 10 lessons per level. The one thing I did notice is that there is no place keeper function. As your students are working through the lessons, you (or they) will have to remember where they left off each time.
The cost of the Classroom app is $26.99 and available for purchase on the AppStore. The Classroom version will give you access to all lessons for all levels — a total of 30 lessons as well as all of the games. There is an option to try the first game and first 2 lessons for free, and then choose each lesson individually as an in-app purchase. The free preview version is all available on the AppStore. Recommended ages are 3-7. Ben says that’s about right. Since most piano teachers prefer students be around 8 years old before beginning piano lessons, we think this app is the perfect introduction for the younger set. It’s also a great price, since $25 is the going rate around here for one piano lesson!
Don’t have an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch? No worries KinderBach is also available as an online tool or on DVD. You can try the online version for free and I highly recommend doing so!
Members of the Crew were able to review either, so you’ll find reviews of both when you click on the banner below.
Also the KinderBach App is on sale this Friday, Oct. 19 ONLY. The app will be discounted over 50%, down to $12.99! No code needed.
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