Category: Music Camps

Early Childhood Music, Games, Group Classes, Music Camps, Printables

Grand Staff Pass Game

Joy Morin

I’m back!  I took a long blogging break over the holidays, but I’m super excited to be back and I have lots of things to share in the upcoming weeks!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years’.

Today, I am excited to share with you about a fun game I came up with for my students’ Piano Party last Saturday:

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“Grand Staff Pass” is a activity for finding and naming notes on the grand staff.  Each student has a printed grand staff in front of them, and must find the notes as indicated on the cards.  The cards are passed to the next student, going counterclockwise around the room.   Continue reading “Grand Staff Pass Game” →

Early Childhood Music, Games, Group Classes, Music Camps

Floor Staff Activity: Introduction to the Grand Staff

Joy Morin

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 we sing or listen to music, and can recognize the treble and bass clef symbols.  I showed them the floor staff (which they were totally excited about), and asked them to count the number lines and spaces with me.  I demonstrated that notes can either be line notes or space notes.  Then, I put the treble clef and bass clef on the floor staff, for high and low sounds.

After that introduction, I handed each student a foam disc (you can find these in the craft section at many stores) and gave them two directions: (1) line or space note, and (2) high or low note.  After placing notes on the staff in this way for a while, they realized there were also “middle” notes, so we started doing that too.  Then we started doing it backwards: I asked them to put a note anywhere they wanted, and to tell me whether it was a line/space note and whether it was high/middle/low.

This turned out to be a fun little activity for introducing the staff to a couple of four-year-olds!  The next step will be to associate the alphabet names to the lines and spaces.  🙂

Group Classes, Music Camps, Music History

4 New Composer Lapbooks

Joy Morin

Over the past week, I have added four new Great Composers & Their Music lapbook studies to the Color In My Piano shop!

The first one is John Cage.  I mentioned this lapbook before, when I blogged about my October Piano Party.  I think this composer study was my favorite one to teach so far!  It was so fun to teach students about Cage’s ingenuity as a composer.  As an extension, we explored the room to find “found instruments,” and experimented with prepared piano.  (No, I didn’t bring screws or bolts anywhere near my piano…but we did try laying pieces of felt and tinfoil on the strings/dampers to see what sounds we could create!).

Continue reading “4 New Composer Lapbooks” →

Early Childhood Music, Group Classes, Music Camps, Printables

Instruments of the Orchestra Study – FREE Orchestra Stage Pieces

Joy Morin

With my music homeschool class, we have been studying the instruments of the orchestra.  We started this endeavor a long time ago, starting with completing the Musical Instruments Workbook.  We have also used Robert Levine’s book: The Story of the Orchestra, and frequently played this review game for remembering the names/families of the instruments.

When I found this “stand-up symphony” download from the St. Louis Symphony website, I knew this would be another great way to review the instruments — as well to as learn where the members of the orchestra sit onstage.

This was such a fun class project!  Over the course of a couple of months, we cut out the figures, colored them, and then folded/taped them so they could stand.  Continue reading “Instruments of the Orchestra Study – FREE Orchestra Stage Pieces” →

Composition, Music Camps, Music History

“So, You Want To Be A Composer?” Camp – Now Available!

Joy Morin

Hooray, the “So, You Want To Be A Composer?” camp has just been added to the Color In My Piano Shop!

Now, it’s time for me to focus on my next camp: “Music History Blast From The Past.”  Want a sneak peak?  Okay, if you insist:  🙂

Composition, Music Camps

Music Camp Freebie from “So, You Want To Be A Composer?”

Joy Morin

Good morning!  The “So, You Want To Be A Composer?” camp is ready to be listed in the Color In My Piano shop……but I’m just waiting to hear back from one more student to get permission to share their composition in the lesson plan as an example.  I will post it as soon as I hear from them!  UPDATE: The lessons plans are posted now!  

For today though, I thought I would share a peek at a composition by one of my other students, and also share a FREEBIE from the camp lessons plans!  Read on.

During camp, we spent a lot of time discussing how composers make music SOUND like the title or the subject they are describing.  This student appropriately chose a minor key for his dragon piece.  I helped him very little, other than approving his first few measures and then encouraging him to add a B section.  Not bad for a first composition, is it?!  🙂  Once he had it worked out on the piano, we together figured out how to notate the piece.  Later, I transcribed his piece into Finale, printed it out, and then asked him to add an illustration.

As promised, I’d like to share a freebie from “So, You Want To Be A Composer?” camp….. a pdf containing TEN different sizes of staff paper!  I hope you can put it to good use.  🙂  Visit the Printables > Other Resources page and scroll down to the S’s for “Sheet Music A-J.”

  Staff Paper - A-J (180.5 KiB, 22,482 hits)

Composition, Music Camps, Printables

So, You Want To Be A Composer? – 2012 Summer Camp Details

Joy Morin

Last week, I held my second summer music camp for my piano students!  It was called, “So, You Want To Be A Composer?”  I am so excited to share with you some details about our camp.  We had a really great week!

Here’s where all the magic happened:

Continue reading “So, You Want To Be A Composer? – 2012 Summer Camp Details” →