Summer 2012 Practice Incentive!

This week has sped by! I can't believe it's Sunday evening, and lessons start up TOMORROW! I think I'm all prepared... ;)

One of the things I most look forward to at the start of each new term is a new practice incentive! I have so much fun coming up with a theme and getting everything together. This summer, our theme is "The Great Music Race". Students will be racing their cars around the track to see who can get closest to the finish line by the end of the summer. The racetrack will also get decorated over the term, as each piece memorized will earn a student a flag to put on the track.

Our race track is all completed and ready to go! I'll provide more pictures at the end of the week once students have their cars all set up at the starting line.

I'm also continuing our flashcard study by using Susan Paradis' Notes in the Fast Lane worksheets. I have all 12 levels laminated and I use them with students from time to time, but I thought that this summer would be the perfect opportunity to really make use of those excellent note drills. As an extra incentive, each student who makes it to Level 6 over the 8 weeks of the summer term will earn a ticket to a pizza party at the end of the term!

I'm hoping to see some dedicated practice from my students over these summer months. What are you doing to help motivate your studios over the summer?!

Valentine Note Challenge Update

My beginning students are halfway through the monthly Valentine note challenge, and they are all loving it! This week, every student earned more hearts than the last, and several students came into their lessons asking when they were going to play the "note game"!

Here's a look at our chart so far:

As you can see, it's going to be a close race! I'm really excited about how seriously all my beginner students (even those who aren't my best practicers) are taking the challenge.

Have you been using any special themed incentives for the month of February? How's it going so far?

February Activity: Valentine Note Challenge

I'm starting lessons off this month with a fun note challenge! Over the month of February, students will be seeing how many hearts they can earn.

I'm using Susan Paradis's cute Valentine Notes worksheet as well as her Steal a Heart cards for the challenge. Each student is timed for one minute. As I show them one of the heart cards they have to:

1. Name the note
2. Play the note
3. Place a candy piece on the correct note on the Valentine Note sheet

After the minute is up, we count up how many candies they've earned, and they draw the correct number of hearts on this simple chart I created. They also get to keep the candy!

As you can see on the chart, we'll be tracking all through February, and the student who gets the most hearts will get a special prize. Not to mention candy every week!

What kinds of fun seasonal activities are you doing for February?!

Valentine Note Scramble for Basic Keyboard Notes and Middle C Position

I feel like 2012 just started a few days ago, and yet it's almost February! Where does the time go? In anticipation of February and Valentine's Day, I've created a few worksheets to help students review basic note names.

Susan Paradis has an excellent worksheet on her website that has notes from Bass C to Treble C, but I wanted something a bit more basic for my earliest beginners, so I created some worksheets that could be used with both pre-readers and beginning readers.

The first sheet is for beginner students and drills basic notes on the keyboard:

The second sheet drills the notes in the Middle C Position, for students who are reading on the staff:

These worksheets are available under the printables tab- look for the worksheets section and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the list. Let me know how you use these during lessons- I'd love to hear from you :)

Note Wizards! Studio Project #1

It's a COLD, windy day here in Maryland. After an unseasonably mild December (I was walking around outside without a jacket on Dec. 30!) winter seems to be here at long last :(

While I am mourning the onset of winter weather, the cold weather has kept me inside and focused on getting some projects accomplished for the upcoming spring term.

I am putting the finishing touches on my big practice contest, and I'll post about that later in the week, but I completed another smaller side project today that I want to share.

My studio is mostly comprised of beginner and elementary level students. One resolution that I have set for myself this spring is to really help these kids learn their notes. While note reading isn't everything, it certainly factors in reading fluency.

To help my students learn their notes and encourage them to practice their flashcards (as well as foster some healthy competition!) I'm inviting all my students to try their hands at becoming music wizards over this term.

There are 2 charts, one for my beginners, and another for those that are a bit further along. Each chart has rules to pass each level, with more flashcards added for each new level. Going along, students earn stickers to put on the chart as they move closer toward becoming music wizards!

It's amazing how competitive kids can be- and I'm hoping that having a visual representation will encourage my students to master their notes!

What kind of projects do you have up your sleeve as you get ready to start a new teaching term?

Middle C and C Position Flashcards (Revised)

Ever had one of those moments where your best laid plans didn't quite turn out like you'd hoped? I went to print my flashcards yesterday in preparation for some games this week, and realized that the margins did not line up AT ALL! My apologies to those who may have printed them already.

I spent some time yesterday re-vamping these sets of flashcards to make sure that they lined up correctly. These new and improved sets can be found on my printables page under flashcards.

Making flashcards and worksheets is definitely a learning process for me! If anyone has tips they'd like to share, I'd love to hear from you! :)

Football Note Match-Up: More C-Position Review!

Here is another set of worksheets I designed with my beginning readers in mind. They can be found under the printables tab, scrolling down to the worksheets section. Enjoy!

New Worksheets for Learning C Position Notes

I have a number of beginning readers in my studio right now, so these worksheets were designed with them specifically in mind! There are 2 worksheets, one for each clef. You can find them under the printables tab, just keep scrolling down until you see the link for the Land of C. Please print and enjoy using these in your own studios.

Great Resources to Help Students Meet Their Goals

I'm having so much fun working to help each of my students meet their fall goals. If you're like me, you love a good list of free resources, so I thought I'd share some of the tools I've been using these past few weeks.

For students who noted that they wanted to improve their note reading skills, I've been using Susan Paradis' Notes in the Fast Lane. My students absolutely LOVE these worksheets, and can't wait for the time each week at their lesson when we pull these out. I laminated the sheets to save on paper, and I time my students for 90 seconds. Their goal is to complete the sheet and get at least a 22/24 to 'pass' their current level.

For students who told me they wanted to work on reading intervals, I printed and laminated Wendy Chan's Interval Snap Game. This was a HUGE hit with my students last week (thanks Wendy :) ), and a great fun off-bench activity that helped review basic intervals. We used the cards to play Go-Fish.

Several of my students noted that they wanted to get better at keeping a steady beat, so in addition to a LOT more metronome practice, I printed out Wendy Stevens' Rhythm Worksheets and made packets for my students. Each student is responsible for writing in the counts and clapping and counting OUT LOUD with the metronome.

These are just a few of the resources I've been making use of in recent weeks. Do you have any resources that have become staples in your studio? Or any resources you've been using on a regular basis this fall? I'd love to hear about those!

Finally Completed! My Musical Alpha Gems

I bought my gemstones at least a month ago, planning to make my own sets of alpha-gems (inspired by this post from Joy over at Color in My Piano) within the week. Somehow, that never happened! So on my term break week I was determined to get these completed and ready for use over the summer!

It took quite a bit more time than I'd anticipated, but I finally got them completed this afternoon. I took Joy's idea and ran with it- creating a few more sets then just the original alphabet letters.

I grouped my alphagems and have them stored in some cute, colorful plastic containers so I can easily pull out the set that I need. And now a bit more detail about what's inside each container (descriptions follow each picture)...

This set is simply the alphabet letters. I'm going to use these for my beginner students to help them identify notes on the keyboard, and also to drill notes on the staff with some of my elementary students.

This set turned out to be the smallest, and is made up of what I call 'Landmark Notes' (some people like to call them 'Guide Notes'), the first notes new students learn and ones that help orient them on the staff as they continue to learn more notes.

Another set makes use of intervallic relationships. Within this container are gems noting half and whole steps, steps and skips, and intervals from the 2nds to octaves. Beginner students will use the step-skip gems, while more advanced students will drill intervals. These can be used along with the basic alphabet keys- draw a letter and an interval and place both gems on the correct keys or line/space on the staff.

The final group is basic alphabet keys with added sharps and flats. I plan to use these with students as we learn pentascales.

So there's my project for the week! What do you think? Any suggestions on additional ways I could use these in my studio? I'd love to hear other ideas!

FACE Flashcards for Treble and Bass Clef

As a relatively new piano teacher, I'm constantly in the process of developing new resources for personal use in my studio (I can't wait to see where I am 5 or so years from now- I'll have flashcards and worksheets galore! :) ).

This morning (Saturday) my hubby got called into work. I wasn't planning on doing any studio work...but I'd been itching to complete these flashcards so I started some laundry, made a cup of coffee...and voila! The flashcards are complete!

I don't know how many teachers use FACE in the bass clef to help students remember notes, but I've created a set of FACE flashcards for both bass and treble clef. This is a spin-off of a concept used by my mentor when I was student teaching. Basically, each card contains three notes from a FACE group...the goal of the student is to identify the notes as quickly as possible.

The possibilities are many and varied. You can use these cards away from the piano and have the student(s) call out the note names, you can incorporate this into an individual lesson as an activity at the keyboard by having them play the notes, you can mix and match both sets and play a matching game (if I made these cards correctly the treble and bass sets should be identical as far as note patterns go), you can use a tabletop or floor keyboard and have students place tokens on the correct keys...as I said- many and varied! And I'm sure there are many more ways they can be used as well!

I'd love to hear of any other creative ways you can think of to use these cards! They're available for download under the printables tab. Each set consists of 3 sheets- the third sheet is a template for flashcard backs- completely up to you whether you want them to have backs or not- it always helps me when I'm looking for a specific flashcard set in a hurry!

FACE Worksheets

I've been having so much fun with my new laminator! It is probably one of the most versatile investments I have ever made for my studio. Not only can I use it to protect flashcards and game pieces, but I've recently started laminating my worksheets to eliminate paper waste.

Her are a few that I've created in the past week (and laminated of course! :) ). I can't wait to start using them with my students this week.

I have a fair number of students who are in Piano Adventures Level or have recently started Level 2A. I created these worksheets to help drill the treble clef space notes. Using FACE is an excellent way to reinforce spatial recognition as students use both 3rds and 5ths to identify these notes.

My goal is to drill these notes and then continue by translation that knowledge onto the keyboard, which is part of the purpose of the final worksheet. Note recognition doesn't mean anything unless they can translate it onto the keys, in my opinion at least!

As always, please feel free to provide feedback and use any of these worksheets for your own personal studios (click on the printables tab and scroll down to find these worksheets).

Keyboard Note Template for Teacher Use

If you have beginner students who need a little more work with note names, I've designed this template for use in a variety of ways. I plan on using it for flashcards, worksheets, and maybe even some little sticky labels to put in students' notebooks. It took very little time to put together, and I'm excited about the multiple ways I can put it to use!

Anything great is better when shared :), so I thought I'd post this on my blog for other teachers to utilize in designing their own activities. There are two pages- the first has just blank keys, and the second has stars on keys to drill specific notes. You can download the template by following the link on my printables page. It is a Publisher file, so please let me know if you need another format. You should be able to re-size the keys to whatever works best for your current activity. Enjoy!

Rainbow Landmark Note Worksheet

I don't know about all of you, but I am more than ready for spring! We had more snow this past week- yuck! To take my mind off of the snowy landscape outside, and to find just one more creative way to help my students learn their landmark notes, I created this worksheet:

It's perfect for spring and for St. Patrick's Day! Please feel free to use the worksheet in your studio, and send me any comments or suggestions you may have.

Valentine Activity for Note Recognition

As I'm always looking for innovative ways to emphasize and brush up on musical concepts, I couldn't let Valentine's Day pass me by without incorporating that theme into a special activity somehow ;). I've been wracking my brain since the beginning of the month trying to design a game/activity that I felt would work well for my students. I looked a several different websites, and read many many great suggestions.

Here is what I'm planning to do with my younger students this week:
I printed the Valentine Notes page off of Susan Paradis' website and bought some candy hearts.



Each student will choose 10 flashcards and then place a piece of candy on the correct note on the Valentine Note page. Then, they uncover and name each note. If they get it right, the candy goes in their bag. If they get it wrong, the candy goes back in my bag. A fun, and hopefully motivational activity!

For my earliest students who are not yet reading on the staff, I plan to use the actual keyboard as the 'gameboard' by having them draw musical alphabet letters and then placing candy on the correct key.

That's my plan for an opening activity this week- I'll let you know how it goes ;)

Photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbetphotography/5354219167/

Additional Studio Foci for the Spring

Yesterday I shared about my spring practice incentive. That's an activity that's always fun to plan, and even more enjoyable as I see my students get caught up in the spirit of the competition.

In addition to the spring practice incentive, however, I have a few other drills I'm incorporating into weekly lessons.

1) To help my students develop a better sense of familiarity with the keyboard and basic intervallic recognition, I'm using the Across the C's sightreading sheets from Natalie Wickham's Music Matters Blog. I love how these worksheets drill spatial and intervalic concepts. The series is also great for drilling additional concepts like: looking for repeated patterns, reading ahead and preparing the next hand position, and maintaining a steady pulse. These sheets are easily accessible, which allows the student to feel a sense of accomplishment.

2) For students who need a bit more work on note recognition, I'm assigning Notes in the Fast Lane sheets from Susan Paradis' website. I've been amazed at how much my students (especially the guys!) love this activity.

3) Another concept I'm really emphasizing for my intermediate students this spring is pulse. This means (oh no!) metronome work. I'm not one to assign a huge amount of metronome practice for my students, but for those who seem to struggle with feeling and maintaining pulse, I've made a resolution with myself that I will start incorporating more metronome work into their weekly assignments.

I'm sure that as the weeks progress I'll start pulling out additional drills to address new issues that crop up, but these were ideas I decided to incorporate right from the start, and I'm hoping to be able to give a positive report in the weeks to come on the success of each drill!