Making piano lessons fun and engaging!

Happy Holidays!  This week my students will be doing a metronome activity that will require them to carefully go through a matrix of festive garland while picking up candy canes along the way.  They will need to be careful, though, not to jingle the bells that are tied to the garland.  I saw a few "matrixes" on Pinterest and thought, "Now, how can I make this relate to the holiday season and more importantly, piano?", and then it hit me!  The kiddos will be going through the "Merry Matrix" by counting a steady beat out loud while picking up candy canes hung from the garland along the way.   For instance if I call out a 3/4 time signature they will need to continuously count 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3, etc. while picking up the candy canes on beat"one".  Every time they say "one" and they're near a candy cane they must pick it up right on the beat for it to count; not before or after but right on the beat.  This helps them ...

Happy Fall!  I am loving this cooler weather.  Okay, I'm just going to jump right in.  WAIT!  I have to show you this pic of my dog in a pet stroller.  Yes, I've joined the crazy folk who go for long walks with their pets in strollers.......sigh.  Don't judge!  Don't get me wrong, he gets his daily walks as well but this allows the booger to be outdoors more often when I go on my longer walks.   He didn't know what to think of this.  I think his face says it all!  With time he'll get used to it.  I hope. Okay, back to piano blogging........ So this week and next, my students will be playing a game I call "Candy Coordinates".  This idea is a modified version of "Battleship" and quite a few versions of  it are floating around sites like "Pinterest" but I made it work for piano!  I purchased 4 mini display boards (you know, the trifolds like the one to the left if you're looking at the web version of this blog)...