“To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.”
— 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 me a message here.
After finding the new Fun & Learn Music website last night, I simply had to share the link with you all. This website has a large variety of FREE music worksheets, organized by subject. The worksheets are clear and to-the-point, but also cute and fun for students. I will definitely be using many of these worksheets with my students in the future!
Fun & Learn Music also has a Shop area, where they sell complete theory books and a couple of rhythm games that look really fun and well-designed. I can’t wait to see how this site develops in the future!
Check out their website here, and their facebook page here.
I have been receiving TONS of questions about my homeschool Music History Classes lately, so I decided to write a post that explains more about how I started and currently run the class.
You may recall that my husband and I moved from Michigan to Ohio about a year-and-a-half ago. Starting up a new studio from scratch takes time, and there is a business strategy that says: “Diversify your income.” I had been wanting to reach out to the home-school community for awhile already (Fun fact: did you know I was home-schooled for 5 years of my education growing up?). 🙂 When I saw Sheryl Welles’s idea (see her blog here) about having a Music Appreciation/Music History class for home-schoolers, I decided I wanted to try to start one, too!
After some online research, I discovered that the home-schooling families in my area have a Yahoo group where they chat and stay in touch about upcoming events. I joined the Yahoo group and posted some information about the classes I want to start. I received only one reply, from a family with three children. Those three children were the entire class for quite awhile, and eventually two more joined.
I decided to hold each class for 50 minutes, so that I could have 10 minutes to put everything away afterwards and still have time to start a private lesson at the next hour if I wanted to.
At first, I taught short lessons about a new composer every week, but soon realized that this was not enough time to give the composer justice — and the students were not absorbing the information well enough. When I would review information from previous weeks, they would get the composers mixed up. That is when I decided to format my curriculum into lapbooks. Using the lapbooks, we cover a new composer every three weeks. (My music history curriculum “Great Composers & Their Music” is currently available for purchase in my Shop at $10 per composer.)
We generally spend about 20-25 minutes each class working on the lapbooks while I read the biography and play musical excerpts by the composer. The rest of the class time is spent doing a variety of activities. I plan worksheets or games that cover rhythm, aural, or theory concepts that are appropriate to the students’ current music knowledge. I write weekly lesson plans, so that I can easily look back and plan ahead.
As you already know, I often create my own games and worksheets and share them here on my blog. 🙂 But I do often use materials created by other teachers, too. The two resources I have been using the most recently are pianimation.com and susanparadis.com. If you don’t already know about these two websites, you should definitely check them out now!
If you have other questions about my homeschool music class, please leave a comment below this post!
Remember the piano valentines I made last year?
I was wasn’t planning to design a new music-themed valentine this year — but when inspiration struck, I just had to design it!
Is it a heart, or is it a piano?! Well, it’s both! 🙂
This design is simpler and easier to assemble than last year’s design. Just cut out the heart shapes! If desired, you can attach a piece of candy to each valentine using a circle of tape. I made a bunch of these to give to my piano students next week.
The free pdf printable can be downloaded by visiting the Printables > Other Resources page, and scrolling down to the P’s for “Piano Valentine Printable 2.” Enjoy!
Piano Valentine Printable 2 (146.6 KiB, 15,340 hits)
Last Saturday, I held another Piano Party for my students! These group classes are so much fun. My students really look forward to them!
We started out with what I call the Rhythm Name game — it’s one of my favorites. Students should be seated in a circle. Each student must create a short rhythm that will be their rhythm name. Before beginning, each student should take turns clap their own rhythm name, so that the rest of the group can learn and memorize them. The teacher can begin by clapping his/her own name, saying “calls,” and then clapping the rhythm name of another student. Gameplay is then passed to that student, who must recognize their name and call another student. Gameplay continues until an allotted amount of time. This game is a great test of the student’s aural skills, rhythm skills, and their musical memory!
Next, I allowed a few students to play pieces that they are currently working on. We gave them verbal feedback on things like dynamics, but mostly we just enjoyed the music.
Then we learned about Scott Joplin! I already used this composer study a couple of weeks ago with my homeschool class, and now I wanted to share it with my private students. Ragtime is an important part of American music history!
As students finished their lapbooks, I started two games (spitting the students into two groups). The first one was the Alphabet Trail game from pianimation.com: Continue reading “February 2013 Piano Party”
I received an email from a reader over the weekend, asking if I had any suggestions for a color printer. I bought a new printer about a year ago, so I told her all about that.
I bought an Epson WorkForce 645
I’ve been pretty happy with my printer overall — I’d give it a 4 stars out of 5. Sometimes, the printer claims there is a paper jam for no reason when it is trying to print double-sided. And sometimes, when printing a full page of color, there are some patchy, un-even areas. But overall, it has performed pretty well for me. The ink is a little pricey IMO, but it is probably no worse than any other brand’s ink.
Do you have a color printer to recommend (or not recommend)? Please share about it in the comments!
I just got caught up with posting some new composer lapbooks to the Color In My Piano shop!
As you may recall, I teach a Music History Class for homeschoolers each week. I started creating my own music history curriculum after I was unable to find anything quite like I was looking for. I ended up using the lapbooking format for my curriculum, because it is a visual, interactive way to learn historical facts and information. It has been quite a success so far! I am constantly impressed with how much information my students are able to absorb each week.
I call my curriculum The Great Composers & Their Music. Each $10 pdf download includes all the pages you will need to print for each student to create their own lapbook, as well as a printable biography booklet, and a few pages of extra information for the teacher. The license for this curriculum allows you to print as many pages as you like, as long as you are using the materials with your own students.
The curriculum is a pretty flexible. I teach each composer over three class periods, spending about 20-30 minutes out of the class on the lapbook. (We do other activities during the rest of the class time.) If you wish to use these lapbooks for a one-time class, you can probably cover the whole lesson in 60 minutes (or maybe 45 minutes if your students are junior high or older). A lot of it depends on how much time you devote to listening to excerpts of the composer’s music (a link to a YouTube playlist is provided).
Here is a peek at the 4 newest composers that have been added to the Color In My Piano shop! Continue reading “4 New Lapbooks Added to the Shop”
“Jazz will endure as long as people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.”
— John Philip Sousa
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 me a message here.
Greetings! I know I’ve been MIA around the blog lately — it’s been a busy couple of weeks. This time of year always requires lots of planning time, for upcoming festivals and recitals. I’ve been helping students pick out repertoire and keeping track of forms and registration dates, etc. 🙂
Anyway, I though I would start a new Forum Q&A post today! Last time, we discussed duet repertoire — I hope you will go check out all of the responses so far by clicking here, and I also hope you’ll continue adding your favorites!
Today, I want to to hear from you:
What piano method books did you learn from as a child? Did you like the books? What did you like about them? What else do you remember about your first piano lessons?
I think it will be fun to hear your stories! I’ll try to post my own answer sometime this week, too.
“Never play anything the same way twice.”
— Louis Armstrong
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 me a message here.
Pinterest is wonderful, isn’t it? 🙂
While browsing Pinterest, I was inspired by this picture by the blogger Becki Lewis. Becki’s Finger Number Beanbag Game is a simple but very effective game for young beginner piano students.
Students stand in front of the mat and drop the beanbag. Then, they name the finger the beanbag landed closest to, and correctly identify RH or LH. I tried this game out with my Piano Readiness Class, and they enjoyed it! It is a quick, easy activity that effectively reviews the hands/fingers.
Becki used a marker and a piece of cardboard to draw the outline of two hands. I designed a printable on the computer to use with my students, and Becki gave me permission to share the printable with you here: visit the Printables > Games page, and scroll down to the F’s for “Finger Number Beanbag Game.” I laminated the two pages and taped them together, so that they fold for easy storage. Enjoy!
Finger Number Beanbag Game (177.7 KiB, 18,441 hits)
I’ve added a new sign to the pdf pack called “Signs for Beginner Piano,” which I originally posted in September. This new sign shows the 2 mnemonics I use when I teach piano:
You can find the whole pdf on the Printables > Other Resources page, and scroll down to the S’s for “Signs for Beginner Piano.”
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