The last two weekends, I hosted a piano teacher retreat at my home in southeast Michigan with two groups of teachers. I’m still reeling from all the fun we had and memories made! It’s been a full and rewarding couple of weeks to be sure.
In this post, I’ll share some photos and highlights from this year’s retreat, along with a quick bit of backstory behind these events.
Continue reading “Recap: My 2023 Piano Teacher Retreat”
Today, I thought I’d share the form I have been handing out to my students for the past couple of years in order to present summertime camp/lesson options.
The top of the handout presents the music camp descriptions and dates/times.
At the bottom, there is a form where students can make their selection regarding the summer camps and lessons. I provide my students with a few package options to choose from, while expecting them to continue making the normal tuition payments each month. This gives us both the flexibility and consistency we need for summertime.
Feel free to download this editable Microsoft Word file: “Summer Lesson and Camp Selection form” via the link at the bottom of this post or on the Printables > Studio Business page.
Summer Lesson and Camp Selection form (143.4 KiB, 3,214 hits)
This week, my students and I are in the middle of rhythm camp!
My blogging might be a bit sporadic for the rest of the week as I continue preparing and teaching this camp. We’ve been busy working in our workbook…
…and playing games and making crafts, too!
I will be blogging more details about our “I Got Rhythm” camp pretty soon. Stay tuned!
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. 🙂
I recently started to do some in-depth planning for the summer camps I plan to offer this summer! My studio policies provide students with two options for the summer months (June-August):
Because I have such a range of ages/levels in my studio, I decided to make my camps very flexible so that students of a wide range of musical backgrounds (even those with no music background) can attend camp. When my studio is larger, I will probably design camps for certain ages/levels. For this year, I think it’s best to be flexible. I’m encouraging my students to invite their friends to attend camp and I’ll put posters around town too. I’m hoping for a turnout of about 4-8 students attending each camp.
Below are the descriptions I came up with for each camp. What do you think — do they sound like fun?! 🙂 Continue reading “My Summer Camp Plans for 2012!”
I had so much fun reading about what kind of pianos you all have on last week’s Forum Q&A! And many of you with blogs posted photos of your piano too. If you haven’t seen all the comments, click here and scroll down to check them out.
This week, let’s talk about something less fun…..studio policies (haha, just kidding). It’s interesting to hear how different teachers approach summertime. Some teachers want their summer off. Others want to keep teaching, or really need the income throughout the whole year. It can also depend on the students you have. One of my piano professors tried to require weekly summer lessons, but for years students/parents gave her trouble about it. Now, she requires them each to take just 6 lessons at some point during the summer. I’m sure everyone has ideas about this matter! So, tell us about your situation:
What are your current policies regarding summer lessons? Required or optional? Week, bi-weekly, or other? Regular tuition rates, or discounted?
If you don’t require students to take lessons all summer, have you found other ways to keep your income the same throughout the year?
I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Add your comment below.
Meet Keri and Carolyn. They are two cousins and piano teachers out of Canada who teamed up to establish their successful piano studio, Piano Stars. They also sell some unique and original piano teaching materials on their website (click here) and on Etsy. When I stumbled across their Etsy shop one day, I just had to order a couple of their wonderful music spinners (pictured below)! Once I contacted Keri and Carolyn, they kindly agreed to be interviewed and featured here at Color In My Piano. Read on!
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Joy: Please tell us about your piano backgrounds!
Keri & Carolyn: We both started piano lessons when we were 7, but due to our age difference Carolyn was actually my (Keri’s) piano teacher growing up! Carolyn has her ARCT in Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music and I am working on my Grade 10 with the Royal Conservatory of Music.
How long have you been running your piano studio together?
We have been working together since 2003 for our summer camps, composing and creating games & teacher resources. However, we both have our own home studios for private lessons and teach about 60 students each.
Even though we teach out of our own homes we plan all of our piano events together. We have the same incentive programs and we combine our students together for recitals, halloween parties, pizza parties, pool parties, etc… Continue reading “Interview: Keri & Carolyn from Piano Stars”
Here’s a list of 30 theme ideas for music studio events! Themes can be used as the studio theme for the school year, or for summer music camps, or for studio recitals. If used for the studio theme for the whole year, there are a number of ways the theme can be incorporated: the incentive program, group lesson activities, worksheets, games, food, decorations, dress, recital repertoire, etc., can all be coordinated to fit the theme.
Please share any additional ideas you have, or any resources you’ve found to be helpful for planning a themed event for your music studio!
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peasap/ / CC BY 2.0Your Cart is Empty
