Today at Ernestine's we broke down the basics of reading music. Using our Beat Buddies (a stuffed animal) we started counting the beat of each note - whole note, half note, quarter note. Then we discovered the "silent beat" - aka rests! Together we worked through cue cards showing different rhythms. My student was quick to pick up reading each card solo and playing the rhythm before I had a chance to give a demo!! So we jumped into a new song. We read all of the rhythms then played the rhythm with the notes on our xylophone! Zippity-do-da! We have started reading music!