About year ago, Sheryl Welles posted on her blog about a “Twister Hopscotch” game that she modified into a wonderful music game. Basically, all you have to do is use Avery circle stickers of some kind to make the spinner into a music spinner with rhythmic note values.
“My music is the spiritual expression of what I am—-My faith, my knowledge, my being……..When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups….I want to speak to their souls.”
— John Coltrane
Every Wednesday brings Words of Wisdom here at the Color in my Piano blog in the form of a musical quote or joke, intended to bring inspiration or humor to the middle of your week. Have suggestions? Send an email off to admin[at]colorinmypiano.com.
I finally started my Christmas shopping this past weekend, and this morning I sightread some Christmas duets with a piano teacher friend of mine. 🙂 Now I’m really starting to feel in the Christmas spirit!
This December, I’m planning a studio Christmas Party for my students. I’ve never done anything like this before, but I am excited about it. My goal is to plan some music games, make some desserts with cheese and crackers, and hold an informal recital portion too. Each student will play one or two Christmas pieces for each other. I’m hoping to include some piano duets too, and I will probably play a Christmas arrangement myself at the end. Another idea I had was to have each student research the history of their carol and verbally introduce their piece.
I’m so excited for the Christmas season!
Photo Credit: allison.hare | CC 2.0
Have any of you been hanging out on Google+ (pronounced “Google plus”) much lately? (If you aren’t familiar with what Google+ is, check out this post on social networking.) Google+ hasn’t risen in popularity as quickly as I had hoped. The features, layout, and user-friendliness of Google+ is so much better than Facebook (IMO). And yet, everyone seems to still be hanging out on Facebook.
Fortunately, Google+ just announced this week that anyone can create a Google+ page for their business/organization. Maybe this will help make Google+ a thriving place to be! I’ve created a page for Color In My Piano which I’d love to have you all join (click here). Wendy Stevens has also created a page for her ComposeCreate blog, which you can view by clicking here. If you haven’t added me to your circles yet, I’d love to connect with you. My profile page is here.
Google+ pages offer a variety of features, including “Hangouts” that allow individuals to group chat (like Skype). Someday, I’d love to organize LIVE round-table discussions about various piano teaching topics! Wouldn’t that be fun?!
So, head on over to Google+. We need more action over there!
This is a short music game I created as a way to reinforce the names of the piano keys with young beginners. It only takes a few minutes to play, but my students seemed to enjoy it. It gives them a break from the usual drill I do, where I have them find 3 different C’s on the piano, etc. 🙂
Here’s how it works:
You’ll need to buy fabric or foam leaves and mark each with a letter from the musical alphabet using a marker or felt tip pen. The student is instructed to match each leaf to it’s spot on the tree, until the whole tree is filled. The game only takes a few minutes, so it’s a great game to do on the piano bench at the beginning or end of a piano lesson.
Any leftover fabric leaves can be used to decorate your Thanksgiving day table in a few weeks. 🙂
To Download: go to the Printables > Games page and scroll down to “Musical Leaves Matchup game.”
“Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand.”
— Stevie Wonder
Every Wednesday brings Words of Wisdom here at the Color in my Piano blog in the form of a musical quote or joke, intended to bring inspiration or humor to the middle of your week. Have suggestions? Send an email off to admin[at]colorinmypiano.com.
It’s been a while since we had a Forum Q&A! Sometimes I run out of ideas for discussion topics, so if you ever have a question you’d like to see addressed here to get other teachers’ input, please let me know. 🙂
Last time, we discussed the role of the parent in private lessons. We received some well-thought responses, so thanks for that! Click here to read them, and remember, it’s never too late to add your thoughts.
Here’s today’s discussion topic: Lesson planning! Here’s a few questions to get you thinking:
Do you create lesson plans for the private piano lessons you teach? Why or why not? If you do create lesson plans, what is your process? How much time do you spend lesson planning each week? Is your method feasible for even if you full studio of say, 20+ students?
Although I’ve been teaching privately for over 6 years now, I still don’t feel I have a good system for lesson planning. Fortunately, I have a pretty good memory for knowing where in their books my students are at any given time. However, I have a feeling that eventually if I get over 20 students to keep track of, this would be become much more difficult. I need to keep better records so I can be more effective in preparing to introduce new concepts to my students before the method book does! I’d love to hear any thoughts you have on this topic. 🙂
Photo Credit: Bright Meadow | CC 2.0
As piano teachers, we wear many hats. School teachers often teach only one age group, or a few age groups. Piano teachers are usually expected to be able to teach from age 5 to 95! But as we all know, teaching a 5-year-old is much different from teaching a 15-year-old, or a 55-year-old. 🙂
In recently thinking about this challenge of being able to effectively teach various age levels and maturities, I decided to make a list of some of the things I’ve learned over the past few years about teaching young ages — I’m thinking, ages 6 and under. I learned some of these things from an Early Childhood Music course I took during grad school and various piano pedagogy courses — but I learned many of these things purely from experience. Here goes:
With my Piano Readiness Class, we’ve been learning about staff notation. Last week, each student composed a mini-composition on the piano and then we together notated the piece. We used colorful markers to label the notes (A, B, C, etc) and also wrote in finger numbers, so they can continue playing their compositions at home. They loved the idea of being composers!
This is the sheet paper we used to notate our compositions. Young students tend to draw rather large notes 🙂 , so I left plenty of room between the lines of the staff.
To download, visit the Printables > Other Resources page and scroll down to “Staff Paper — Large Staff for Simple Compositions.”
I don’t know about you, but I’m always on the lookout for creative and inexpensive items for my teaching. The dollar store is one of my favorite places to go!
In the craft aisle at Dollar Tree right now, there are packages of foam cubes, as shown in the picture. I’ve always wanted to make scale blocks like Natalie Wickham’s, but have never got around to buying the wood blocks and paint. These foam cubes seem like a pretty good alternative, although they may not last as long I suppose. On the upside, it doesn’t take long to write the alphabet letters on these little cubes with a marker! I am going to go back to buy a couple more packages, so I can make a nice set of scale blocks using the orange colored cubes. Continue reading “Recent Purchases: Scale Blocks & A Technique Monkey”
“The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, ‘Is there a meaning to music?’ My answer would be, ‘Yes.’ And ‘Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?’ My answer to that would be, ‘No.'”
— Aaron Copland
Every Wednesday brings Words of Wisdom here at the Color in my Piano blog in the form of a musical quote or joke, intended to bring inspiration or humor to the middle of your week. Have suggestions? Send an email off to admin[at]colorinmypiano.com.
I don’t normally do much for Halloween, but I am doing a couple of little things this year with my students:
I found this game on D’Net’s Layton Music website. Basically, students “earn” their Halloween treat by clapping rhythms! When my students came to their lessons last week, we started with this game. They have to do as many “trick” (rhythm) cards as it takes until they draw a “treat” card. D’Net has the best game ideas. I definitely plan to reuse this next year!
Occasionally, I like take a week off from my students’ normal theory book assignments so I can give them a supplemental worksheet targeting a specific skill, or simply so I can give them a just-for-fun worksheet! Susan Paradis’ Bat Facts worksheet is perfect for a just-for-fun worksheet, while giving students a chance to review identifying note names on the staff. Plus, students get to learn some true fun facts about bats!
Happy Halloween to you all! What activities did you plan?
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