Last week, I blogged all about my recent Music History camp and I also promised a free download of the lapbook of the music history periods. The pdf is ready for download! Read on for the details.
On Saturday, I held a Piano Party for my students. It was basically a group lesson and rehearsal for our Spring Recital which is coming up in a few weeks. Most of my students have never met each other, so this was a good opportunity for them to learn a little about each other and [...]
I have a new Printable to share today:
I had a wonderful extended weekend in Michigan, giving my presentations and spending time with my family! Now I’m busy back at work, playing catch-up. :) However, I do have a little game I’d like to share with you today. I am not the original inventor of this game, I’m sure — but in case [...]
My Homeschool Class and my Piano Readiness Class both recently finished their Musical Instruments Workbooks. We usually complete just two pages each class, so it took us awhile to get through it! Now that we’ve finished it, we’ve been playing a fun little sorting/quizzing game using the deck of instrument cards that came with my [...]
This is a simple game to play with groups of students that makes note-naming flashcards a bit more interesting. It involves sorting the flashcards onto alphabet letter signs on the floor, as pictured on the right (the “A” flashcards would go in the blank space on the right side of the page). The game [...]
With my Piano Readiness Class, we’ve been learning about the instruments and the instrument families. To do this, I decided to create a workbook for my students to be able to take notes about the instruments and color a picture of each one. Description: This 29-page workbook contains coloring pages and blank lines for taking [...]
Here’s another session given by the well-loved pedagogue Marvin Blickenstaff from the 2011 OhioMTA Conference: Piano Pedagogy 101: Reviewing the Basics Mr. Blickenstaff introduced this session by commenting that at conferences and workshops, we often hear ideas for teaching intermediate and advanced students, but we don’t very often hear ideas for teaching beginners during that [...]
I’ve mentioned before that during grad school, I took an Early Childhood Music course. One of the things we discussed was using the “sound before sight” philosophy – where the student is exposed to and experiences the concepts before being taught the name or the written notation. I’ve been doing my best to use this [...]
Many months ago, I bought a bunch of carpet square samples from a flooring store. Even though I was still in grad school at the time and didn’t have any real use for them (yet), I had a plan for them. And they were incredibly cheap. :) During last week’s Piano Readiness Class, I got [...]
I have two 5-year-old students signed up for a Piano Readiness Class, and our first class was yesterday! We had such a fun time. We sang songs, listened to music to find/walk to the beat, traced our hands to learn about RH/LH/finger numbers, and more. Best of all, we played the Piano Hands Hunt game [...]
In my last post, I mentioned the MiniMusic kit by Paula Manwaring (Kjos Publishing) that I purchased while I was at the NCKP conference. The photos and description of this curriculum on the Kjos Publishing website do not do it justice! So I decided to show you some photos I took myself. I think many [...]
Joy Morin is a piano teacher in Ohio. She enjoys keeping her teaching fresh with new ideas & resources.
