Making piano lessons fun and engaging!

  Happy Holidays to everyone!  I have to say that this is one of my crazier metronome activities but my students absolutely LOVE it!  I came up with the title based on the show "American Ninja Warrior".  The obstacle course itself was inspired by Christie Burnett, editor of www.Childhood101.com who calls her activity   Don't Ring the Bells! Obstacle Course,   I added a few extra things and took out a few to appeal to my youngest to oldest piano students.  I created 4 obstacles.  I love Christie's idea of adding bells to each of her obstacles.  It makes it so much more fun and challenging not to mention festive. The first obstacle is getting through both hula hoops within 8 metronome beats.  I added an extra hoop to mine to make it extra challenging!  I think when my kiddos do this next week I'll hang the bells down lower.  I decided to wrap the hula hoops in holiday ribbon as an added touch. The second obsta...

Hi Everyone!  I decided to write a blog on understanding intervals since a good number of my parents have been asking about this concept.  We'll start with labeling a few of the piano keys. The musical alphabet consists of 7 letters A-G which repeats itself over and over up and down the piano.  So every white note is a letter from A-G. The note with the blue tab will be the starter note which is C.  The 2nd note after C (to the right of C) is D.  The 3rd note after C is E, etc.   Intervals are the distance between two notes.  How far one white note is from another.  Translating the top example into intervals:  E is the 3rd note after C or an interval of a 3rd up from C.  G is the 5th note after C or G is an interval of a 5th up from C. Going the other direction: B is the 2nd note down from C (to the left of C) or an interval of a 2nd down from C.  G is the 4th note down from C or an interval of a 4th down from C. ...

OMGosh!  Summer break flew by.  Geez Louise!  I find that the older I get, it seems, the faster time goes by.  I hope your summer break was filled with lots of trips to the pool and picnics!   I couldn't think of a musically related name for this game so I'm calling it the "Ice Cube Tray Game". I know, not very original but there you go!  The three places I LOVE to shop at are craft/hobby stores, teacher stores, and my all time favorite......dollar stores.  A few weeks back I was roaming the aisles of Dollar Tree® and came across these blue ice cube trays (2 in a pack).  I couldn't think of what to do with them at the time but I just knew that a game would come to me eventually.  A week before the beginning of the new school year I laid the trays out in front of me hoping that somehow an idea would pop into my head........nothing!  My creative juices were not flowing AT ALL!  So I stacked them up and put them away but kep...

Ah! I LOVE summer.  Things seem to slow down this time of the year. You get to splash in a pool, inner tube down a river, enjoy a refreshing snow cone or a tall glass of lemonade while chatting with your friends sitting in lawn chairs, have picnics, walk in the warm rain, listen to outdoor entertainment, watch movies in a park, and the best part about the summer is that there is more daylight! I wanted my piano students to start off their summer piano session with a game that represented this season best.  I don't know about you but when I think of summer I think of water play!  While walking through Michael's­® (a craft/hobby store)  I came across a set of water creatures that were on sale and I got to thinking, "Now what I can I do with these?".  There were 6 creatures in a set as well as a small net so I bought 2 sets to cover 12 musical terms per level of instruction.  Here is a picture of a few of them.   I immediately thought of dropp...

Hi All!  The Valentine's Day game was a huge success last week!  After observing my students of all ages play this game, here are the rules I settled on: -Total game time 5 minutes -Children up to 8 years of age will throw hearts in the first 6 cups   -every 2 cups equals one prize sheet sticker -Children older than 8 years of age can throw hearts in all 10 cups   -1st 3 cups equals a sticker, next 4 another sticker, and the last 3 one final sticker -They must pitch hearts in sequential order (cup 1, then 2, 3, etc.) -If a heart lands in a cup out of sequence it will count if/when they get to it -Get a heart in the targeted cup, answer the question correctly, move onto the next cup Ideas for questions: -show pictures of musical terms for students to identify -have them roll the dice from my "note rollers" blog and locate notes on the piano -have students solve musical math problems drawn on index cards   Ex. (Dotted half note x whole) + half not...

Hi All!  This week my kiddos will be playing a game I thought up while walking through the aisles of a local "Dollar" store. I LOVE the "Dollar" store!  I bought 2 packs of candy cups and 1 pack each of red and pink plastic hearts. The other materials I used were half a poster board, markers, velcro dots, plus a Valentine's Day cup (from a set of 12 I bought a few years ago). Whether this new game's a favorite among my students or not is yet to be seen but hopefully it'll be a big hit. I'll let you know what worked and what didn't after this week. I adhered 10 candy cups with velcro dots to poster board that I cut in half.  I decorated it with markers, gathered the plastic pink and red hearts in the Valentine's Day cup and "Voila"! The Game:  Each student will be given a cup filled with plastic hearts.  The game itself will be placed either on the floor or on a table 1-2 feet away from them depending on the age of the child; clo...