Happy New Year! It's been a bit cold here where I live but the sun is shining today so all is well! My son says that the reason why I can relate to and understand kids so well is because I'm a kid at heart. He may be right. As an adult, if I had to choose between a class I was required to sit through for 60 minutes versus a class where I could play games, do hands-on activities, and move around, I know which class I'd pick! That's just the way my brain works. I soak in and retain a lot more information when it's presented to me in a variety of ways and this method of teaching seems to work really well with kids too. Check out this individual, Dr. Howard Gardner and his work on multiple intelligences! I learned about him when I was getting my bachelors degree in education. Some of his theories has made a huge impact on the way I teach.
The "Treasure Wheel"! My students LOVED playing this game. It's very much like "Wheel of Fortune" just adapted to piano. Almost all of my students who got to play it asked if we could play it again at their next lesson. My younger students will get to play this game when they get a little older and have a better understanding of how letters, words, and spelling of words work.
To make the board, I used thick foam board, made an alphabet strip at the bottom with the vowels in red, adhered green index cards in two rows, added some clip art to the top, "laminated" the board by using long strips of clear packing tape, and added small clear plastic hooks to the top of each index card.
Then I created the musical terms used for the game by putting one letter on each of the white index cards and hole punching them. As the student spun the wheel they would guess a letter, not a vowel, and if the letter was on the board they'd win the amount of money they landed on. If the letter was not a part of the puzzle then I'd cross it off on the alphabet strip to keep track of what was already called. They didn't lose anything by calling out incorrect letters so I told them to spin and guess a letter ANY LETTER as quickly as they could. Eventually, they'd hit on something. I'd also keep track of their money earned/money spent and we would quickly tabulate their total at the end of the game. I added a few extra items on the wheel like Note ID where they'd have to quickly identify and locate a staff note on one of my flat rubber pianos to win $500. I also added a "Vowel" option where if they landed on this I would give them a vowel from the puzzle. The "Vowel" and Note ID option could only be used once when solving each "puzzle". The kiddos loved landing on Double $ because then meant that they could spin again and possibly win double the amount of money they landed on if they guessed a letter correctly.
Vowels could be bought for $200 once they earned enough money to buy them. They had 2 minutes to spin and guess letters from the puzzle. Since they weren't competing with anyone I told them to hold off solving the puzzles, if they got them early on, to accumulate as much money as possible by spinning and guessing as many consonants within the time limit they had.
So exciting! I have to say that some of the parents got involved in the game as well. It was pretty funny. At the end of 2 minutes if they guessed the puzzle correctly they'd win an extra $500 but if they weren't able to figure out the puzzle then I'd give them a hint and they had 5 seconds to guess what it was.
If they were able to guess it with my hint then they'd earn $200. If they weren't able to guess it even with the extra generous hint I gave then they lost $500. Wouldn't it be wonderful if this were real money being earned but alas the money earned translated into piano bucks and stickers. Can you guess the puzzle?
Until next time, piano blogger signing off.........
