Tag: piano teaching

Music Camps, Reviews

Review: Road Trip USA! Camp by Sheryl Welles

Joy Morin

My friend Sheryl Welles has just put her RoadTrip USA! camp lesson plans up for sale on her website!  She very kindly sent me a copy to review, and so I’m going to tell you all about it.  🙂

RoadTrip USA! is a 159-page pdf that contains detailed descriptions with photos of the games and activities Sheryl does for her camp.  Sheryl also includes detailed lists for the supplies you will need each day, as well as some advice about registration forms and setting tuition.

So, what is the camp like?  Each day, campers travel to a different part of the United States to listen to different styles of music, learn about composers, and reinforce basic musical concepts, like rhythm and note reading.  The five destinations are Washington D.C., New Orleans, the Wild West, New York City, and Hawaii.  The activities throughout the day are themed around that day’s destination.  I love the great variety of activities (indoors, outdoors, movement, listening, etc!) Sheryl uses for this camp, and your students will love it too!  If you haven’t seen Sheryl’s blog before, I highly recommend you check out some of her posts about her music camps. Continue reading “Review: Road Trip USA! Camp by Sheryl Welles” →

Games, Music Camps, Printables

Musical Olympics Camp – Lesson Plan & Materials

Joy Morin

I have finally completed the lesson plans for the Musical Olympics Camp!  This pdf is a FREE download from the Printables > Lesson Plans page.  Let me give another thank you to Sheryl Welles for her great game ideas, and for her permission to include descriptions of those games in the lesson plan.

This pdf also includes a few new printables I created for the Musical Olympics Camp.  I decided to make some of those new printables available for download on the Printables page too, since some of them may easily be used for activities besides the camp.  Here’s a list of all the printables:

Games, Music Camps

2012 Musical Olympics Camp – Day 4

Joy Morin

Here’s some photos to enjoy from our final day of Musical Olympics Camp.  Since it was our last day, I invited the students’ parents to come and watch our last hour of camp.  We re-played a few of our favorite games from the week, and also had an Olympic Awards Ceremony.  More details below.

Our first game was the Ultimate Rhythm Relay, which was a culmination of all the relays we did throughout the week!  First, the student tossed the musical beach ball (from yesterday) in the air and complete the musical task it indicated.  Then, they ran to the buckets and tossed a beanbag until they got it into a bucket.  The buckets were each marked with a note/rest.  Last, students ran over to the ring toss area, where they had to toss a ring until they got it over the flag whose note/rest matched the bucket they had tossed their beanbag into.   Then students ran back to the starting point to tag the next player.  I know it sounds complicated, but these relays are much easier to explain by demonstration than they are to describe in words!  Continue reading “2012 Musical Olympics Camp – Day 4” →

Games, Music Camps

2012 Musical Olympics Camp – Day 3

Joy Morin

Here’s some photos to enjoy from Day 3 of my Musical Olympics camp:

Our first game was the Build-A-Keyboard Interval Challenge.  To prepare, I drew a large keyboard on the cement for each team using chalk.  I gave each team two spinners: a musical alphabet one, and an interval spinner (unison through 5th).  Each of the four students on each team had a job: two students held the spinners, and the other two students stood on the starting note on the keyboard and the second note of the interval in order to build interval indicated on the spinner.  Teams raced to see how many intervals they could build within 5 minutes.  I didn’t get a very good photo of this game, because my husband and I were too busy tracking each team’s points (it’s a fast-moving game!).  🙂 Continue reading “2012 Musical Olympics Camp – Day 3” →

Games, Music Camps

2012 Musical Olympics Camp – Day 2

Joy Morin

We had great weather on Day 2 of our camp last week!

Our first game of the day was Sheryl Welles’ fabulous Musical Alphabet Noodle Relay!  For this relay, team members must travel via the noodle to retrieve alphabet flags from the ground and bring them back to the starting point.  For the first round, they had to retrieve the flags in order A-G, and the second round they retrieved them backwards.  Watching them travel via the noodle was pretty hilarious, I must admit!  My students loved this game.  Continue reading “2012 Musical Olympics Camp – Day 2” →

Games, Music Camps, Rhythm

2012 Musical Olympics Camp – Day 1

Joy Morin

Last week, I held a Musical Olympics camp for my students and it was a great success!  We had such a fun week and I received a lot of positive feedback from the students and parents.  I will definitely continue doing similar camps in future years!

Over the course of this week, I’m going to be sharing lots of details and photos.  At the end of the week, I’ll share a pdf download with more details about the materials and directions for the games.  🙂

Here’s some of the details:

  • We met two hours a day, Monday through Thursday.
  • I set the time for 10am to 12pm, which was perfect because camp was over before the weather got too warm in the afternoon.
  • We were outside for all the games and activities, except for Monday when we encountered rain.  I was able to convert some games into indoor games which we did in my garage.

For Day 1 of camp, my wonderful friend Loretta (who lives a couple of hours away) came for a visit to be my camp helper!  It was great seeing her again.

Continue reading “2012 Musical Olympics Camp – Day 1” →

Early Childhood Music, Music Theory, Worksheets

Treble & Bass Clef Dot-To-Dot Worksheets

Joy Morin

Here’s a new worksheet I just added to the Printables page:

To teach my beginner students how to draw and recognize the treble and bass clef, I created this pair of dot-to-dot worksheets for the treble and bass clefs.  The dots and numbers are nice and big for little eyes to see!

To download, visit the Printables > Worksheets page and scroll down to the T’s for “Treble & Bass Clef Dot-To-Dot Worksheets.”

Enjoy!

  Treble & Bass Clef Dot-To-Dot Worksheets (68.0 KiB, 38,889 hits)

Questions, Studio Business

Forum Q&A | End-Of-The-Year Tasks

Joy Morin

I’ve let a few weeks go by again without doing a Forum Q&A, so I think it’s high time for another!  🙂  Last time, we discussed attending conferences but only received a few comments.  Feel free to add your thoughts.

The school year is wrapping up — at least for those of us in the U.S.!  So, I’m curious:

What are you up to?  What end-of-the-year preparations preparations are you working on?  Summer scheduling, progress reports, re-registration for the fall, planning summer camps, etc?  Fill me in! 

Leave your comment below this post.  🙂

Motivation, Teaching Piano

Teaching Phrase: “I Think You Are Ready For…”

Joy Morin

Here is a phrase I find myself use more and more lately with my students:

“I think you are ready for…”  

Imagine me saying it with plenty of enthusiasm.  This phrase comes in handy in a number of circumstances, such as:

  • “Wow, you’ve got all your 5-finger patterns learned, so I think you are ready to start scales!”
  • “You are playing each hand’s part so well…now you are ready to put hands together!”
  • “Great, I think you are ready to bump up the tempo!”
  • “I think Johnny is ready for 45-minute lessons!”

Watch your student (and his/her parent) swell with pride at that last one.  Saying that line sure beats a conversation that sounds like you are trying to justify or talk the parent into switching from 30- to 45-minute lessons.

It’s all in how you present it.  Learning scales or bumping up the tempo might at first seem like a chore, but presenting the next new challenge as an acknowledgement of their accomplishments and hard work can help motivate students for the next thing.  They’ve worked their way to this point, after all, and they should be proud of it!

So, try it!  And let me know what other circumstances you think of for using this phrase.  🙂

General

Student Humor

Joy Morin

Just a quick story to share today…

I was teaching my homeschool music class this morning, and we started learning about Franz Liszt today.  After talking about his life, I played this YouTube video of Evgeny Kissin playing a Liszt etude to listen to as they colored a picture of Liszt.  As usual, I had to explain that the performer they saw in the video was not Liszt because they did not have video cameras back then.

Then the oldest boy (8) asked, “What are those fancy letters at the beginning of the video?”  I quickly answered, “I think those are Chinese letters, because this recital probably took place in China.”  My student thought about that for a moment, and then said, “That makes sense, because most things are made in China.”  🙂

Afterwards, I realized that the letters are probably actually Japanese since under the YouTube video it states that the recital took place in Toyko.  Regardless, I thought this was a cute story to share.

Games, Group Classes, Music Camps, Printables, Teaching Piano

Spell-A-Keyboard Game

Joy Morin

This morning with my homeschool music class, I played this game with my students:

As I was lesson planning last night, I was trying to think of a new way to practice the names of the piano keys.  My homeschool music class is mostly a music history class, but we’ve been learning basic music/piano concepts too.  My students already know how to figure them the piano key names by counting from Middle C, but they need more practice to get them memorized.  So I came up with this game, which I called the “Spell-A-Keyboard Game.”

My students loved this game!  I gave them each a set of cards with words containing only A-G (I gave them only the three-letter words for today) and a silent keyboard or paper keyboard, and three glass gems (pennies or buttons work too).  Then I instructed them to “spell” the words from each flashcard by covering the right keys with glass gems.  If you are playing this game with students at the piano, you can require that students spell the letters in order from left to right, but on a silent keyboard there might not be room to do so (as in the example shown in the photo).

This game is a great way to practice the piano key names without it actually feeling like a drill!  My students really enjoyed seeing how quickly they could spell the words and were pretty proud of their work each time.

You can download the “Musical Alphabet Word Flashcards” on the Printables > Games page.  When I created the cards, I tried to pick mostly words that kids would know.  Enjoy!

Update: I just realized that Susan Paradis plays a game very similar to this, except the words are spelled on the staff!  Read more here.

Update: Read about the outdoor version of this game here, where I describe my Musical Olympics Camp.

Update: I also found a way to adapt this game to be used with two floor keyboards indoors, with two teams.  Click here for more info.