I haven’t shared much about my summer music camps yet — and they are coming up soon!
Like last year, I’m holding one camp each month. They run Monday through Thursday from 10am-12pm. I chose a different topic for each month:
“I’ve Got Rhythm!” – (June)
During this camp, students will benefit from focusing on arguably the most essential element of music: rhythm! There will be lots of opportunities for group music-making, using body percussion (clapping, snapping, tongue clucking, etc.) and hand-held percussion instruments. Throughout the week, we will also complete workbook about various aspects of rhythm (pulse, time signatures, rhythm values, etc). For students ages 6-14.
“Music History Blast From The Past” – (July)
Back by popular demand, this camp will give students a glimpse into the lives of the four different great classical composers. As we study the composers we will be not only listening to the music of each time period, but also looking at the instruments, clothes, and art of each time period in order to make the past come alive. Each day, we will focus on a time period from music history and create a scrapbook page of pictures/notes to take home. It will be similar to last year’s music history camp, but we will cover four different composers this year. Campers will be sure experience the thrill of a blast from the past during this music history camp! For students ages 6-14.
“Music of the World” – (August)
Join us for a journey around to world to study the music of different cultures! Campers will travel to four different countries to learn about each culture, music style, and musical instruments. Students will complete a workbook and craft their own musical instrument each day. Join us for this adventure! For students ages 6-14.
Are you planning any summer music camps this year? If so, please share about your camp plans in the comments below!
Sounds like a blast! I am doing a camp for the first time ever this summer. I’m using Natalie’s Kick It Up A Notch! program with my older students next week and I am so excited to see how it goes! I wish I could have managed to plan a camp for my younger students, but it just didn’t happen.
That sound great, Jessica! I’m sure your older students have a blast next week!
OH MY GOSH!!! Love this! I have already incorporated some of the hands on theory for my younger beginners and even later-beginners. They thought is was fun!! I will be utilizing most of your methods and games. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I only ended my college with a minor in music and felt under qualified in the beginning to teach lessons – over 11 years ago. I have grown as a teacher every day and your ideas and knowledge are a blessing to my piano studio!! Thanks again for sharing your talents with us who are not as creative with ideas and need a bit more encouraging as teachers. 🙂
Thanks for the kind comment, Karen! I’m glad you found ColorInMyPiano — we have a lot of fun around here. 😉
Hello Joy,
First off, thank you for posting this article on your blog. I have been musing about having a small group lesson once in a while for my four students. The problem is.. they vary in age. So my question is, how do you create a camp or group lesson that will challenge and reach every student.. regardless of age.
Thank you and Take Care,
Emily
Hi Emily,
Take a peek at this post (https://colorinmypiano.flywheelsites.com/2012/10/04/my-new-monthly-group-lessons-piano-parties/) as well as the comments on that post. I think you will find some ideas/inspiration for getting starting with group classes with a range of ages. It takes careful planning, but it can be done! If you have a student who is considerably older than the other three, though, I would consider holding the group class with only the younger three.
Good luck!
Your summer music camp sounds absolutely wonderful and I love the T-shirts! In Australia we don’t really have a summer camp tradition, what a shame. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity for students to learn and experience lots in a fun and relaxed environment 🙂
I am in piano camp this week. Theme: water! It is hot here in south MS. All the games outside have to do with water. Inside games are related to water: like fishing notes, lily pads, leap frog intervals, ducky music symbols. We are also study Mozart (from your composer collection). I gave them some music like Lily Pads from Susan Paradis to learn during the week and some easy arrangements of Mozart’s music. We are having some small crafts like feathers and roses made out of Mozart’s music. Worksheets have fishing themes. Thanks to all you bloggers out there I was able to come up with enough material to make this theme work! One child came in yesterday and said “I wish we could do this all the time!” Achieved success!
I love the water theme idea, Donna! It’s perfect for summertime. It sounds like you are having a great week!
Just had my first piano camp last week. It was a huge success and my students didn’t want to go home! The camp included: 1) ear training exercises, 2) review of chords and scales, 3) crafts (a pencil holder made from a macaroni and cheese box from the Highlights website: https://www.highlightskids.com/crafts/piano-pencil-holder), and 4) each student created his/her own musical composition in Finale NotePad. Their enthusiasm was contagious and became a big motivating factor for everyone. Our grand finale was making piano cakes, an annual summer tradition for us. I pre-made small rectangular white cakes and the girls decorating them with white frosting and Kit Kats for the piano keys. I will definitely host a camp again next year and maybe even a Saturday workshop in the fall.
I will be holding a camp the week of July 8 – 12 from 9 am – 4 pm….. did this last year and we had a ton of fun. We start each morning off with a fun co-operative game… like trolley walk or nuclear transport ( from mrgym.com) which gets the kids working together – good practice for duet partnerships. Then we continue inside on keyboards… everyone has their own… for 30 – 45 minutes. We break things up with a board game or “indoor” game… then a break for a snack and back to the keyboards. Just before lunch we do another game or some workbook activity. We take an hour for lunch… but I always have a fun activity like mural painting on the garage, or giant bubbles to keep them happy. Afternoon activities include a lot of outdoor games garnered from different sites like yours Joy and Susan Paradis’… and I’ve come up with some of my own games too…. like a giant board game that we play on the back lawn, or a musical scavenger hunt where they must find symbols in a piece of music that they are given. the symbols are hung in the little grove of trees that we have by our house. We also do “junkyard band” in the haymow – we live on a dairy farm… so the cows below us get entertained. Some days we do a craft… last year we made rainsticks, and decorated our music binders. This year we will make lightbulb maracas, and decorate clothes pins to make “counting pins” for keeping track of practice repetitions. The last day we do a special activity in the afternoon… last year it was “The Amazing Musical Race” which had teams of two racing against each other – solving musical problems… like building measures of beats, or searching among the wrapped hay bales for pieces of the grand staff… in order to earn clues to the next activity. Great fun! This year we will be solving a mystery… still working on that one! We end the week with a campfire and smores. I only have 8 students take part and I have one of my older students help me out for the week.
Big thanks to Joy and Susan and all the camp blogs out there for ideas to make this work. Lots of fun.. lots of work… but well worth it!
I love the passion you have to teach music.
Your summer camp sounds like one that all your students will enjoy.
I found your site to be very interesting and I have gain some great ideas that I can bring back to my summer program!
Thanks a lot and all the best!
Hello, again, Joy.
Will you be offering your “I’ve Got Rhythm” Camp materials for sale?
Perhaps! I’m unsure at this point, Amy! So many projects, not enough time. 🙂