Schoenhut Traditional Spinet Toy Piano

Product Description

Sensory 3

Skills

• As children play the piano, tolerating sound/minimizing startle reflex can be incorporated.
• Encourage one finger use by playing individual notes.
• Music can be used as a stimulus to increase auditory awareness.

Play Ideas

• Having a child who is defensive to loud sounds playing the piano can help minimize startle reflexes and trauma due to loud noises when they produce the sound themselves.
• Practice auditory discrimination--a caregiver can play a rhythm and the child can try and play it back. 
• Incoporate other instruments into play to add new sounds to the music. 

Adaptation Ideas

• Add textured material to the white keys.
• Put puff paint dots on some keys.

Communicative 3

Skills

• Consonant vowel combinations can be encouraged through musical play. Consonant sounds are beginning sounds of words for early learners.
• Children can learn to follow directions by only hitting certain keys.
• You can have your child work on colors and following directions at the same time by asking them to hit all the red keys, or blue keys. In doing so, they will be working on their receptive language skills.
• A child can help increase literacy skills by memorizing songs.

Play Ideas

• Play a song and model the appropriate singing or vowel sound to hum along with the song.
• Work on your child’s abc’s while playing music. Children may find it hard to play music and sing simultaneously, so take turns – the caregiver can play the piano while the child sings and then reverse so the child has a turn playing the piano.
• Imitate consonant vowel combinations while your child “plays” the piano.
• Sing finger play songs or children songs.

Adaptation Ideas

• Put animal pictures on top of the colors and have the child make the animal name or sound when they hit that key.

Physical 2

Skills

• Practice balance, stability and righting reactions while sitting on the bench.
• Using an isolated finger use can be prompted and modeled as children and caregivers play the piano together
• Encourage reaching and intended movements for children who struggle to move their arms. Instant cause and effect toys, such as this, are great motivators for movement
• Playing the piano can help a child move fingers individually and improve manual dexterity.

Play Ideas

• Practice balancing on the piano bench while playing or listening to music.
• Build up trunk strength while using tummy muscles to sit and shoulder strength to raise arms to play.
• Work on righting reactions while simultaneously helping your child play the piano.
• Standing can be encouraged while playing this piano without using the bench.
• Pointer fingers can be used to hit one key at a time.