In the fall of 2019, professional musician and private lesson teacher Nico Padden had a new challenge:  teach a kindergarten student the ukulele.  She searched and searched for a ukulele method that would be fun.  No method book existed that felt appropriate for this age level to teach ukulele--everything she could find was based on strumming and singing, which was too complex for a five year old student to manage.  Young elementary school students need to play simple melodies that are familiar to them when they begin an instrument.  This way, they can build finger strength, hand-eye coordination, the ability to play on a steady beat, and accomplish "music" somewhat quickly so that they can feel excited and gratified at what they've learned.  Playing chords, accompanying singing, or doing elaborate fingerpicking is just not developmentally appropriate-- yet! 

 So, Nico set out to make her own appropriately sequenced method that started with simple melodies and melodic patterns that eventually progressed into very simple chords and strums.   She combined the use of TAB notation along with colorful Suzuki tape and standard rhythmic notation.  By the middle of 2020, she had hand-drawn and assembled a large variety of materials and shared them with her esteemed teacher colleague Maria Diaz.  Maria had some of her own excellent ukulele teaching resources and together, they decided to mastermind everything they'd taught before into one sequential, age appropriate Ukulele method book for children, grades K-6. 

Nico and Maria printed a small run of their book and sold out quickly to teacher friends and music stores in their immediate network.  Feedback for the book has been smashing.  They've received many reports of happy students learning, playing, and enjoying their colorful and inventive songs.  Now, they'd like to share their method book with ukulele students and music teachers everywhere.  With beautiful illustrations by graphic designer Blair McEvoy and a thoughtful, sequenced structure,  Ukulele Rockstars! is guaranteed to have your elementary school student playing songs, singing along, and rocking out.