Merry Matrix

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 with a few things when playing music;  they learn to keep a steady beat while playing their songs, they learn to multi-task while keeping that steady beat, and it's a super fun way to get them to do it, don't you think?

For my more advanced students I will switch time signatures as they go through the matrix and they will need to quickly shift from counting in  2/4, 3/4, 4/4 to 6/8.  To add a little healthy competition to this activity I will write down the names of the students that got the most candy canes (while staying on the beat and counting continuously) on one of the wipe off boards I have in my studio.  They LOVE having their names written on the board for all the other students to see.  It also motivates all of the kiddos to do their very best with this activity.

Until next time, piano blogger signing off...........  

Candy Coordinates

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) and I cut the wings off of two of the trifolds which I made into grids that lay flat on the table where the kids will place the candy on if siblings are playing with each other.

I left one wing on the other two trifolds and used a few velcro dots here and there to create the triangular "hit" and "miss" board you see in the picture in the upper left hand corner of this blog.  I also typed up the "hit" and "miss" words, printed them out on card stock, laminated them, and punched a whole at the very top so that they could hang from the little plastic hooks (picture to the left) that I adhered to each of the grid spaces.   The game board is in three separate pieces;  the flat grids where the candies go and then the triangular middle piece where the "hit" and "miss" pieces are recorded.


The kiddos LOVE this game especially since they get a chance to win candy, of course!  I thought that since it's around Halloween this would be the perfect time to play it.

Each student picks 5 pieces of candy from an assortment of candies.  This game can work with siblings or just one single student.  If it's one student then they hand the pieces to me where I place them all around my grid.  They sit opposite of me and answer piano questions to get the opportunity to guess where the candy is.  I put a 10 minute time limit on the game so that it won't take up the whole lesson.

All you need to do is ask a questions pertaining to their level of instruction that your student must answer in order to call out a coordinate.   I made this a 4 x 4 grid which allowed me to ask up to 16 questions if needed.  You can always make your grid bigger.

This is a picture of the coordinate board they use to keep track of their "hits" and "misses".  Yes, I know, for those of you who are perfectionists, this board is probably driving you crazy because the grid is not perfectly lined up or proportioned correctly.  Just think of it as a visual spring board!  I like to call my imperfect creations "homemade".  Lol!

I have quite a few siblings that take lessons from me so they will be playing opposite each other but the only way they can call out coordinates is if they answer piano questions correctly that I ask or show them like naming a musical term correctly, identifying a note and playing it on one of my flat rubber pianos, identifying melodic or harmonic intervals, etc.  This is such an open ended format that you can test your kiddos on anything and everything you'd like AND you can cater it to the level of instruction each child is currently in!  If you try it, please let me know how it goes!  I would love to hear from you.  Until next time, piano blogger signing off...........................