Did you or you children learn to play the recorder?

YES!  I had to take a music class in college as part of my general ed courses.  I lived at home at the time and I impressed my dad with how good I got by the end of the semester.  Looking back, that must have been torture for my parents! 

I did. They were called flute-a-phones.  My kids called them recorders.

Yes, DS (10) brought his home just in time for Spring Break. I made him practice in the backyard.

All four kids learned to screech on one in 4th grade, so this is the end of an era

I had recorder lessons when I was 8/9 in Cyprus (British Forces school) mid-70s but no one would call that learning to play the recorder, lol

none of my kids did (graduation years 2010, 2018, 2025)

Yep! Ds did and so did I, although I dont recall being able to take mine home

I did and my kids did. I excelled at Hot Cross Buns on the recorder.

my kids did.. they are 35 and 37.
2 out of three played instruments in middle school.. one continued through college and still plays in community groups. (tuba) she also played bass guitar for 10 yrs.
the third kid was in choir in middle school. and studied guitar for 5 yrs

I played the flutophone in later grade school. I played clarinet for years in school. I have several very high grade professional recorders that I used to play - I need to take it back up. They have a much better sound than those plastic flutophones. I was inspired to play because Mannheim Steamroller features them in several of their Christmas songs.

Oh, now you're in my professional wheelhouse.

I never learned to play the recorder in school. No idea why. We didn't have instruments of any kind unless we joined band. I learned to play along with my students during my first year of elementary music teaching.

Yes, we teach recorder because it is cheap and accessible, but more importantly because it allows students to put into practice musical concepts that would just be theory otherwise. It's been proven in numerous studies that learning to play music has huge benefits for brain development. My 3rd graders are always surprised at how difficult it is to read the notes and rhythms on the page and then translate that into the correct use of breath and fingerings to produce a tune. Though not recognized often enough by academic literature, reading and playing/singing music is among the highest of higher-order thinking skills we can bestow on students. We synthesize a lot of different information while playing, and simultaneously evaluate our playing and that of others. In an ideal setting, students then use those skills to create their own music.

The human voice, of course, is free, and many teachers choose to simply teach singing, as it checks all the same educational boxes. In the past few decades, though, our culture has stopped seeing singing as something that all humans do, and rather as something that should only be done by the extremely gifted. Thus, many students are not comfortable singing in public and it presents a major roadblock to learning.

But when you put recorders in students' hands, the playing field is level. Nobody's instrument is better or worse than anyone else's. Nobody is afraid to play because we all sound terrible at first.

Contrary to popular belief, though, it's not difficult at all to produce a pleasant sound on recorder. Once students are able to experiment a bit with breath pressure, 99% make a tone that is much, much better than their violin-playing peers will make for at least the first year. I even have special ed. students in my class who play beautifully. The first time I send the recorder home, I send a note to parents saying that their child knows how to make a pleasant sound, and that any loud, shrill noises they hear are the result of the child's choice to make that sound - and I would take the recorder away at that point and send it back to school.

This is my last year of school teaching, and my final group of 3rd graders will put on their recorder program in early May. It will be bittersweet for me. The vast majority of my students have loved playing recorder. The pride on their faces after they perform for their parents is magical. And I know the learning they've done and the confidence they've gained will help them for years to come, even if they never pick up another instrument.

Finally, I'm trying to figure out who the heck is teaching Three Blind Mice as a first recorder song. Hot Cross Buns is the most common first song because it uses only three notes. Three Blind Mice would be much more challenging and require the student to know a lot more notes.

(As for my kids, they were in my elementary music classes, so yes - they both learned to play recorder.   )

Yes.

I learned to “play” the recorder in grade school in the 70s.  I graduated in 1982.  
My brother leaned in the 80’s.  He graduated in 1992.  
My niece and nephew learned and the are in jr high and highschool right now. 

“play” - is actuality perception and not reality.  Hahaha.

Hot Cross Buns come roaring back to anyone?  😆

ETA - should have read Merge’s post first.  Hahaha.

I did, and so did my kids. It's a right of passage for 4th graders in my mind.

Yes. I had a white and red flutaphone in 4th grade. DD had a black recorder. I went on to take up playing the flute in 6th grade and all through middle school and high school band.

The grandson went to private school. I think he did one semester of recorder in 2nd grade and then in the fall all 3rd grade students took violin in music class. He played violin until he went to middle school.

We did the recorder in music class and some of us got chosen to play "Ode to Peace" at the spring sing - I don't know how I ended up in that group but I loved playing the recorder!

I was curious about the differences between a flit iPhone and a recorder, and there are a few. This one stood out to me, though: “Flutophones have a less refined tone due to its whistle mouthpiece, which can give it a shrill quality.”

I guess I should be glad my girls (now 30, 24, and 24) had recorders instead of flutophones. The recorders were shrill enough LOL. www.liveabout.com/profile-of-the-flutophone-2457219#:~:text=Flutophones%20have%20a%20less%20refined,with%20more%20concert%20band%20quality.&text=The%20finger%20holes%20of%20the,recorders%2C%20the%20holes%20are%20smooth.