Remember last February when I created this DIY floor staff? I thought I’d share a little activity that shows how I used it recently with my Piano Readiness Class. (Don’t mind my cat, Coda, who totally photo-bombed this photo. :) The two students I was working with have already learned to identify high and low sounds when [...]
As big of a fan as I am of Nancy & Randall Faber’s materials for piano students, somehow I’ve never had a chance to try out their “My First Piano Adventure” books — until now. After trying out this book with a new 5-year-old student last week, I am wondering why in the world didn’t [...]
There are others who have shared alphabet card printables similar to what I’m posting today, but I’m adding mine to the mix anyway. :) I wanted some that would work well to print onto colored cardstock paper. Since I don’t have a color printer, this is an easy way I can still get colorful things [...]
I got the idea for this craft from Kara’s Creative Place blog (thanks for the brilliant idea, Kara!). Ribbon Rings (Kara’s example is pictured at right) are a fun prop for movement activities with young students during group lessons, camps, or early childhood music classes. Kids love fluttering the ribbons of these props while they [...]
Developing a good sense of rhythm is one of the most challenging parts of being a piano teacher. It’s not something that arrives overnight, and it’s something that must be maintained as the student advances to music with more advanced rhythms and time signatures. It truly is something that must be developed. I’d like to [...]
Check out this interesting news article, reporting about a research study done on babies and their response to rhythm versus speech. Here’s the summary from another site reporting on the same research: Human infants are born to dance, researchers report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Psychologists from the United Kingdom [...]
I’ve been digging around online lately, looking for early childhood music resources. (Yes, I’m sorry – I’m still on this kick!) Look what I found! TONS of great links: Songs / Sheet Music MakingMusicFun.com – free printable sheet music with lyrics of all kinds of children’s songs Kididdles.com – free printable sheet music, lyrics, with corresponding [...]
In answer to a question a received last week, I thought I’d talk a little bit more about teaching 2 against 3, as I had mentioned in a post about teaching music through movement. To tell you the truth, I have not needed to teach 2 against 3 very often so far, and when I [...]
One of the reasons I’ve been considering offering early childhood music classes is because I am a firm believer in the strong relationship between music and movement. As an undergrad, I took two semester of Dalcroze Eurhythmics which I found incredibly useful. We learned movements that fit different meters and learned to respond expressively to [...]
Lately, I’ve been considering offering pre-piano music classes for children and their parents — someday, when I have a private studio in my home again (Right now, I teach piano privately through my university’s community music school.). My goal in providing these classes someday is to better prepare young children (think ages 0-5, especially) for [...]
Joy Morin is a piano teacher in Ohio. She enjoys keeping her teaching fresh with new ideas & resources.
