Last week, a colleague of mine and I held a summer piano mini-camp with the help of our piano professor. Here’s what we did:
- We planned to hold the camp on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 12:30 – 2:30pm.
- Application forms were sent to all the piano teachers who are members of our local chapter of MTNA and Michigan MTA.
- We charged a fairly low rate, to encourage more participants.
- Location: my piano professor’s church, where there are a number of nice pianos and plenty of rooms for us to use — at no cost to us.
We received applications from 11 students. The students ranged in age from 7 years to 13 years old.
We planned a rotating schedule, where the students were divided by age into 3 groups (which we named A, B, and C) and rotated from class to class. My colleague taught Music History class, I taught Music Theory class, and my piano professor taught Performance Class. Here’s how we divided our time:
12:30 – 12:45 Opening activities (all campers). 12:45 – 1:15 1st class 1:15 – 1:45 2nd class 1:45 – 2:00 Snack time 2:00 – 2:30 3rd classThe snack each day was different, consisting of items such as pretzels, fruit snacks, goldfish crackers, and juice packs. Nothing too sugary or expensive! We were very careful to keep our expenses low. Snacks were our largest expense; the rest were simply a few craft supplies needed for games/activities.
The camp was quite a success! Our campers had a great time. A few of the parents even asked if we would be holding camp again next year.
Stay tuned — I’ll be sharing more about the opening activities we used and more about my Music Theory class soon!
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
Joy is a pianist and teacher in Ohio with great passion for helping students experience the wonders of music making! Here at Color In My Piano, she enjoys sharing and exchanging ideas and resources for piano teaching.
6 Comments
Sounds like fun! Can’t wait to hear more about it.
I have been toying with offering something similar on a regular basis. Do you happen to know anything about insurance issues for students?
I don’t actually. Maybe some other readers do? I’d be very interested in finding out too!
I purchased commercial insurance for my home-based piano studio. For example, this covers me in case a student trips and falls on my sidewalk or injures themselves in anyway. I checked around with many insurance companies for quotes and finally chose my own home insurance company. The cost is quite reasonable for the piece-of-mind it gives me. I’m in Canada and costs are higher here, but I pay $378 per year. This gives me general liability coverage for up to 5,000,000. The cost is worth it, IMO, because I have over 60 students coming to my home every week.
It’s similar here in the US, and often, if you go through the same company that handles your homeowner’s insurance, they’ll give you a discount.
This may be more complicated if you work somewhere other than home. If a student were to fall at a music store or an apartment complex, then the owner of the property could be liable. If you’re in that kind of situation, check with the property owner to see if they’re covered (and they usually are if they’re a business.) Regardless, it never hurts to check with an insurance agent, and most consultations are free.
I have an umbrella liability policy through our homeowner’s insurance company (State Farm Insurance) and it covers up to $1 million at a cost of $21 per year. Our local park & recreation dept. required me to obtain this since I teach introductory piano camps during the summer in my home studio for local students advertised through the park & rec summer brochure. I could not believe how reasonable the cost was to add this to our homeowner’s policy!