Early Childhood Music, repertoire / methods, Reviews

First Thoughts Regarding Faber’s “My First Piano Adventure”

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 I check this out sooner?!

My First Piano Adventure is designed for young beginners, ages 5 and 6.  I suspect that 4-year-olds would also thrive using this book, and maybe even precocious 3-year-olds — but don’t quote me on that until I’ve had more time to test it out.

The Lesson Book comes with a CD full of fun songs and activities that teach the student about basic technique, how to make different sounds on the piano, and much more.  The CD alone is worth the price of the Lesson Book!!   Parents can play the CD at home or in the car so the student is hearing them all week long.  I bought my own copy to play during lessons — but I also plan to use some of the songs on the CD with my Piano Readiness Classes and Homeschool Music class because they are that good.  🙂  Many of the songs involve some pretty creative activities for learning basic piano technique — which is great, because I am always on the lookout for finding effective ways to teach young beginners proper technique. Continue reading “First Thoughts Regarding Faber’s “My First Piano Adventure””

improving as a teacher, Professional Development, Questions

Forum Q&A | New Year’s Resolutions for Piano Teachers

I’ve already blogged a bit about my New Year’s Resolution.  Now it’s your turn!

Our previous Q&A Forum brought about a great discussion about whether or not to lesson plan for piano lessons (and if so, how to feasibly do so even if you have a large studio).  Today, let’s start a discussion about what change you’d like to make in your teaching this year!  I think it’s important as teachers to continually be making little changes and looking for ways to improve our teaching.  It not only makes us better teachers, but it also helps keep things fresh for our students as well as ourselves.  🙂

So, tell us:

  • As a piano teacher, what would you like to START doing this year?
  • What would you like to STOP doing this year?
  • What would you like to KEEP doing this year?

Comment away!

Professional Development, Studio Business

Semester Planning & Organization

I’ve been doing a bit of cleaning and reorganizing in my studio, like putting all those music books that always seem to migrate to the piano top back in their proper place on their shelves.  🙂

I also visited the music store today to pick up new books for some of my students.  I’m so happy to have a music store in my area again.  In the town where we were living back in Michigan, there was no music store within an hour’s drive.  I won’t take it for granted again, and will do my best to purchase music books from them instead of ordering online!  Maybe I can help keep them in business.  😉

With the arrival of the new year, it’s also time to plan ahead for the student events that springtime inevitably brings!  I’ve been using my Studio Planning Calendar (pdf is available for download on the Printables > Studio Business page) to plan for upcoming festival and event dates held by the music associations in my area.  I’m excited about all the different opportunities there are for my students to participate in, and I’d like to send at least a couple of students to each event.  I also have a few students that I might enter in The Achievement Program for assessment in May, provided they are interested.

How is the New Year going for you?  🙂