Hi! Similar to the thread being run on piano teaching at the moment, does anyone have any book recommendations or any suggestions on how to keep 6 year olds interested on a cello? Unfortunately I'm dictated to by "the system" and I have to "teach" them for 30 mins which I know is too long for 6 year olds. However, the two I have are extremely musical - they can tell me which open strings are out of tune! What I had in mind was maybe some exercises with the bow hold like creeping up and down it and that sort of thing. I would really like to nuture them because I think they'll be really nice players once their concentration levels rise and so I have no problem with playing games etc to keep their interest up.

My daughter started the cello when she was six and a half. Like you she was in an unflexible system and had a 30 minute lesson right from the beginning. (I'm not sure from your post if you have them together or separatly - she had hers by herself). She quite liked copying games, sitting back to back with her teacher, one would play something and the other had to copy. Initially it was just finding the right notes and only open strings but after a while she added rhythm as well. They took it in turns to play and to copy; sometimes her teacher used to get it wrong and my daughter was very proud when she could spot her teacher's mistake!

Something which her teacher only discovered by accident was that my daughter also liked to her her play what my daughter called "proper music." Once, the person before my daughter was away and when we came in her teacher was practising one of the Bach suites. My daughter stared at her open-mouthed and said "I didn't know you knew how to play with all your fingers!" After that, if my daughter had worked hard she would sometimes play her something as a little treat at the end of the lesson.

I can't suggest a book as she had one in German (despite living in France), it had lots of pictures of animals but I wasn't overkeen on it as all the tunes had words to them and of course she couldn't understand them. After a while she used String Tunes in parallel with her tutor book and she really liked this as it had tunes she knew in it.

A & C Black as part of the abracadabra series (I think that's what it's called) were to bring out a set of beginner string books designed for children taught in groups. I saw one of them when it was in the proof stage last year and it looked promising. From what I can remember they combined fun activites and general musicianship with learning an instrument.