Woodi Kindergarten Flute (kindergarten Recorder) WRP-408 Pearwood 6-tonic Flauto

My niece loves tootling around on a plastic recorder but struggles to cover all the holes with her small hands. She also doesn't have patience to practice :) This fipple flute has only 5 holes on the front and no thumb hole; raise one finger and go up one note. Holes are all small and close together as well. Comes in a nice carrying bag and with a (completely useless) fingering chart for recorders. I made a chart of the actual fingerings (shown in the pictures). If you search for 6-note songs written for alto sax, you can also find music to play with this flute.Because it is wood, I would suggest "playing in" this flute before giving it to a kid (starting with just 5 minutes playing a day for the first week, 10 min per day 2nd week, etc). Wooden wind instruments can crack otherwise if they get too wet from playing too much too soon. I'd also suggest finding a cleaning stick and lint-free rag to swab out after playing to prevent mold. There's a seam in the middle of the flute but it appears to be glued rather than a working joint; I can't take it apart. The block appears to be a separate piece of wood which could be knocked out (VERY CAREFULLY) for cleaning. I flute I received had a spot where the finish had chipped off but Woodi got back to me very quickly.

Compared to other pentatonic flutes, this one was a good value, and it sounds nice, though I'm no expert on recorders. The pentatonic scale means that it's less annoying to listen to when your child plays it tunelessly. The dark wood finish on this isn't very durable. My daughter let her teeth touch the mouthpiece at first, and the dark finish scratched off revealing the lighter wood beneath. Otherwise, it's a nice little instrument and the cotton cleaning brush that comes with it is very cute.

This instrument does not play the notes advertized. It plays (from low to high) GABCDE. These are the first 6 notes of a G major scale, but it is not a pentatonic scale, so do not buy this as a replacement for a Choroi pentatonic flute. It is A LOT less expensive than a Choroi, and there are many pleasant melodies that can be played with this, but I don't really know why anyone would get this instead of a soprano recorder, which can play far more notes as the musician becomes capable.

Just bought this a few weeks ago, used it a few times, it fell apart in two peices and now doesn't fit back together unless I glue or tape it or something, you have to hold it together. I like that it's all wood but some flaws...