Greetings! During today’s live broadcast via Periscope, I shared a little bit about a studio holiday project that I have been doing for the past two years: building a paper chain to decorate the studio, adding a new chain for every holiday piece that students learn. Preparing for this tradition again this year has made me excited about giving out Christmas music to students this week!
Here is a picture of the chain from last year:
Watch today’s quick video here, describing the Christmas Chain project:
You can download the free PDF sheet of paper describing the Christmas Chain project here:
Musical Christmas Chain Project (155.5 KiB, 4,933 hits)
Thanks for watching! Do you have your own holiday traditions for your studio? Please share! I would love to hear about them.
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All past broadcasts are here: ColorInMyPiano.com/live/. To watch future broadcasts live, download the free Periscope app (for iOS or Android), search for @joymorinpiano, and hop online on Mondays at noon Eastern time. Hope to see you next time!
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Great idea! I alternate doing a Halloween concert or a Christmas concert off and on. This year it’s the “Holly Jolly Piano Folly” again. I usually do my class/concert on a weeknight. Kids come first to play games and snack, and then parents come for the concert at the end. My incentive for getting those holiday pieces ready is a giant glass bowl or container of Christmas ornaments…usually sparkly, shiny, or somehow eye-catching (but inexpensive!!). I sit it on the piano and the students usually see one or two they want and so hope to get their piece done in time to get the ornament they want before someone else does. There are plenty of good ones, though. On my off-year I may do the chain-link, though, because they can learn many more pieces in the year they don’t have to do the little concert. Thanks for all your wonderful ideas!
I love it, Joy! I remember you posting about this last year. I want to do this in my studio but I already started teaching some Christmas pieces last week…. They haven’t been mastered yet so I think we can still do it. Thanks for the reminder. I enjoy projects that allow my students to interact with each other even though they don’t get to see each other every week.
Also I’m enjoying the Peeiscopes and I actually really liked the short video this week. I’m not able to watch live (I have students at that time) but I enjoy catching up later and the short video was perfect to watch when I just had a few minutes!
Thank you again!
What a fun idea! I’ve done something similar, but every link represented one day of practice in the month of December. All of my students were excited to add their practice days to the chain!
What a neat idea. Stocking up on red and green paper this week! I have one comment on the video. This is the first video I have watched from Periscope (I think that’s what you used?) and if this is indicative of the typical quality I can’t say I will be watching a lot in the future. Very wobbly and seasickness-inducing!
thanks for your ongoing enthusiasm and sharing of everything you do!
Sorry about that, Kathy! I’ll try to do better next time. 🙂
What a great idea! Do you have any other studio projects similar to this?
This is the only project like this that I’ve done — but I suppose it wouldn’t be difficult to come up with other variations for other times of the year!