It’s early, I know! But the other day, I decided to browse on Amazon to see what I might find for a holiday gift for my students.
Is it necessary to give your students a gift during the holidays? Certainly not, but personally I do find joy in getting something small and fun to make my students smile.
Here’s what I’m thrilled to have found for this year: these accordion fold music ornaments!
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Do you enjoy giving some kind of small gift to your piano students at Christmastime? I do! I enjoy giving something small but thoughtful to make them smile.
I try to come up with something different each year. Often, it’s a music-themed ornament for their Christmas tree, but not always. Some years, it’s a homemade gift; other years, it’s store-bought.
Note: This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links. Thanks for supporting my blog!
This year, I started browsing and brainstorming early. I found quite a few nice ideas on Amazon. (Later in this post, I’ll share a link to a whole list of ideas I considered.)
But as soon as I saw these sequin music note keychains, I immediately ordered them!
Continue reading “My 2023 Christmas Gifts for Piano Students”
Do you enjoy giving some kind of small gift to your piano students at Christmastime? I do! I enjoy giving something small but thoughtful to make them smile. I try to come up with something different each year.
Note: This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links. Thanks for supporting my blog!
This year, I was pleased to find some really lovely and affordable music-themed ornament options on Amazon. In fact, I could hardly decide which one to go with!
I ended up choosing the wooden sheet music ornaments pictured below, and am very happy with my decision. They are light-weight, but nice quality wood ornaments with a sheet music print and blackened edges. The package comes as a set of 24 ornaments with 8 different shapes: hearts, pine trees, reindeers, snowmen, bells, round ornaments, stars, and snowflakes. You must attach the strings yourself, but they are included.
Continue reading “My 2022 Christmas Gifts for Piano Students”Hello, teacher friends! Today, I thought I would make an update this flashback post sharing ideas for piano student gift ideas. Read on to see what ideas I’ve done in the past…and stay tuned for tomorrow, when I’ll share what I’ve planned for this year!
I don’t think it’s necessary to give your piano students gifts at Christmastime, but it’s a nice gesture if you feel so inspired! Some years, I’ve kept it pretty simple while other years I have felt inspired to take on a more time-intensive project. I hope you’ll enjoy browsing this post and perhaps gaining an idea or two to tuck away for the future!
Continue reading “Christmas Gifts for Piano Students, 2011-present”
Do you enjoy giving some kind of small gift to your piano students at Christmastime? I don’t feel it’s something we as piano teachers should feel obligated to do. But if it’s something you enjoy, I think it’s a nice gesture! I look forward to coming up with something different each year.
[Click here to see gift ideas from past years!]
This year, inspired by a photo I saw on Instagram, I decided to seek out a local bakery to make some pretty piano cookies for my students. I requested quotes from two bakeries and was thrilled when the first one gave me a rate that was reasonable enough for my budget. I placed my order and couldn’t wait for the pick-up date to arrive.
Over the weekend, I picked up my cookie order. I was so thrilled and pleased with how they turned out! Aren’t they pretty?!
Aria, my constant sidekick, “helped” me put the cookies into individual baggies.
I couldn’t be happier with how these turned out!
Something else new I decided to try this year was to order custom pens with my studio logo. I thought it might be fun to include these pens in the Christmas gift this year, as well as to use around the studio and give out to new students when they join. I ordered through CustomInk.com, which has been a great company to work with in the past when I’ve done T-shirts for my students. The pens turned out nicely! It’s a good thing, because CustomInk.com have a minimum of 300 for pen orders. I will be well stocked for at least a few years! 😉
I also gave each student one of our family photo cards. To add a personal touch, I typed up a short holiday greeting printed onto sticky notes. (Did you know you can print onto sticky notes? It’s so handy for all kinds of projects! To learn how, check out this blog post.)
I packaged everything into bubble wrap mailers to send to my online students back in Ohio.
In my studio, I set up an area for my in-person students to receive their gifts. I’m excited to see my students’ faces when they see the cookies!
After all that hard work, Aria and I were ready to try out a cookie! It was our reward after a job well done. 🙂
[Check out the video version of this blog post here on Instagram!]
Your turn: Did you plan to give out students gifts this year? If so, what did you come up with? I invite you to leave a comment!
Hi there! Christmas Day is nearly upon us. Today, I thought I would make an update this flashback post to share what I gave my students this year. (You can skip down to the bottom of this post to see!)
Things to keep in mind: I don’t think it’s necessary to give your piano students gifts at Christmastime, but it’s a nice gesture if you feel so inspired! Some years, I’ve kept it pretty simple while other years I have felt inspired to take on a more time-intensive project. I hope you’ll enjoy browsing this post and perhaps gaining an idea or two to tuck away for the future!
Continue reading “Christmas Gifts for Students, 2011-2020”Just a quick follow-up to the student Christmas gift post from some few weeks ago…
Here’s what I ended up gifting my students last month:
I ordered the black gloves from eBay (here). I used white 3D fabric paint to add the treble clef on the RH glove, and allowed it to dry. I came back later to flip it over and draw a bass clef on the LH glove. They turned out pretty cute!
I can’t take credit for the idea. I saw a piano teacher share the idea in one of the Facebook groups for piano teachers, quite some time ago. I saved the idea, thinking I’d probably use it some year. And here we are!
I baked the brownies myself and placed two pieces in each treat sack, separated by a square of parchment paper. A quick piece of ribbon makes them look a bit festive.
If you’re looking for a good brownie recipe, here’s the link to the one I used: Best Fudgiest Brownies. My husband is a better cook than I am; he’s able to bake them just right so they are wonderfully fudgey, plus achieve that lovely cracked look on the top. Fortunately, they still taste pretty great even when I bake them. 🙂
Just thought I’d share. I always appreciate getting ideas from other teachers, and bet you do too!
Happy Wednesday to you!
I know, I know…it’s barely November, and here I am already talking about Christmas gifts! But in my opinion, it’s never too early to start thinking ahead and brainstorming. I tend to enjoy the holidays more when I’ve managed to get an early start on my to-dos. 🙂
I don’t think it’s necessary to give your piano students gifts at Christmastime, but it’s a nice gesture if you feel so inspired!
And so, I thought it’d be fun to do a flashback post today, taking a look at the Christmas gifts I’ve done over the years for my students. Some of these gifts were pretty time intensive (certain years, apparently I was inspired enough to be willing to take on a big project!), and other years were simple, but thoughtful gifts. I hope perhaps these photos will give you a useful idea or two, if you’re looking for ideas for something to do for your own students!
Back in 2011, I created personalized glass sheet music ornaments for each student, with their name and the year written with a gold paint pen. They turned out so pretty! I love how they turned out, and would like to use this idea again in the future. Each student also received a chocolate Symphony bar. Read more here.
That year, I gave my adult students something else: a copy of the book “The A to Z of Foreign Musical Terms” by Christine Ammer. I learned about this book during grad school, when one of my professors recommended it as a music dictionary that actually contains all the words we commonly see in our music. (Have you ever looked up a word in your music dictinary, only to find it wasn’t included?!) This book is a nice slim volume, and a great price — I’d recommend it to any piano teacher or student! I use it not infrequently during lessons, to have students look up the terms in their pieces.
Hope you had a nice Christmas and are enjoying a break from teaching!
Now that Christmas is past, I can share about the gifts I made for my piano students this year. 🙂
As you may know, I love creating homemade gifts. Last year, I home-recorded a CD of a few favorite classical teaching pieces. In 2012, I baked iced music cookies and in 2011 I created personalized glass sheet music ornaments.
For this year’s project, I decided to compose two pieces (one mid-elementary level and one late intermediate level) and give them to my students for Christmas. Here is a peek at how the elementary piece turned out:
Continue reading “Student Christmas Gift: Original Piano Composition”
Here is a peek at the project that has been occupying my spare time for the last two months:
In November, I got the idea to record myself playing some classical pieces that I were my favorite to learn as I was growing up. I thought it would make a nice Christmas gift for my family, friends, and piano students. The project turned out to take MUCH more time than I had originally anticipated, but I am very pleased with the outcome! Continue reading “My CD Project: Favorite Piano Classics for Students”
I hope all you USA-ers enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! I know I did. 🙂
It has been awhile since we did a Forum Q&A post (how did that happen?!). Last time, we discussed how to help students who are frustrated by the mistakes they make, large or small. You can read all the responses by clicking here.
Today, I’d like to hear about Christmas gifts for piano students!
Do you give your students a gift at Christmas? If so, what are you giving this year? What have you given in previous years?
Please share in the comment section below this post!
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