Christmas Lessons in Review

Just thought I'd give you a quick update on how some of the Christmas activities worked with my students in the last couple of weeks. I certainly enjoy this time of year, and I think that they did too!

For games, I played Ornament Bingo with my beginner students and Musical Christmas Lights with some beginners and all my intermediate students. Both of these games can be found at Susan Paradis site. My students always seem to like bingo-type games. Sometimes I play with them and sometimes I let them play alone with me calling out letters or whatever. There are lots of possibilities with these games for variety.

From Jen's Piano Studio Blog we played Christmas Carol Rhythm Matchups (does anyone else really have to think when they spell the word "rhythm"???? :) We also played a similar, but slightly more advanced game from Layton Music called Christmas Rhythms. (Theres that word again!) These games (yes, they still are games) helped them to really think while being able to enjoy some well-known Christmas Carols. Sometimes I would just leave them to figure it out on their own, sometimes I would sing and clap the song, then have them put it together and then clap it back to me.

All of my beginners played some of these simple Christmas Songs from Susan Paradis: Good King Wenceslas and The Twelve Days of Christmas. Some of my students went online and found some other Christmas carols to play. Go them! They all loved playing these. My 7-year-old sister Carrie loved The TWelve Days of Christmas....I mean loved it. She even added the little "bump-bump bum bum" like Miss Piggy after "5 golden rings." And if I hear one more verse of that song, I think I'll scream. :)

And now, I have one more lesson tomorrow, and then we are done with lessons until after the New Year. My students are glad for the break...I did not assign them anything over Christmas. And their teacher is glad for a little break too. :) How about you?

Christmas Carols

I have been thinking a lot lately about the Christmas carols that are found in our hymnals. I am sure most of us know that some of them are not very biblical. Certainly that has been my mindset, and in case you are wondering, yes, I do agree.

But I never really stopped to look at what makes them un-biblical. Lately I have looked over a few, but I almost think I am more confused now about the whole issue!

For instance, many of our Christmas carols are about the angels singing. And I know that that is an issue to some, because the Bible never ever says that angels sing. Whenever there are any angels, they are always "saying" not, "singing." For real, go look at Luke 2 again, and it clearly says, "the angel said." Did you know that?

But then I have also heard the issue that the word for "said" there in the original language could mean sing, or talk. So I'm confused. Does the fact that the song says the angels sang make it unbiblical?

Another song I was looking at was the song "We 3 Kings." As long as I can remember I have viewed this song as a big no-no at Christmas time, because we do not know how many Wise men there were, and they weren't kings either. (Check Matthew 2 out for that bit of info!) But I really got to looking at the rest of the words to that song, and the hymn isn't about the wise men at all, really. If focuses more on the gifts they brought, and each verse talks about one of the gifts - Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. It tells why those particular gifts were brought, and how they forshadowed Christ's death. Its actually really neat! So because we do not know for sure how many of these wise men there were, and we do know that there was 3 gifts, is this song unbiblical?

I'm not trying to start a mutiny here, these are just some of my thoughts about our hymns, and I am hoping you all will chime in. What is your opinion? Am I missing some other doctrinal error in these songs?? Which songs do you steer away from, and which ones do you embrace?

Last Minute Christmas

Before we take a break from lessons for the Christmas holidays, I just wanted to let you know about two more resources to take advantage of this season:

A GIVEAWAY!! (Jumping for joy...)

Leah is hosting a Christmas CD giveaway on her blog, Drops From My Cup. Leah is a piano teacher in New Brunswick. I listened to the clips from this cd and LOVE IT!! (With a capital heart) There are even ways to enter more than once. So head on over to her blog and find out how to enter this fantastic giveaway!! Even if you don't win the cd, you will enjoy the clips you hear and you will purchase your own. Yeah, its just that good.

Secondly, A RESOURCE:

Over at Layton Music they have a great rhythm game using Christmas carols. The rhythm of a carol is written out on little cards that the student has to put in order. How neat is that? I am planning on using these this week in my lessons. One of the great things I like about it is that it will be thought provoking even for my most advanced student. And games for him are hard to find. I did notice as I was cutting them out that the song "O Christmas Tree" has one too many beats in the top right-hand box. Minor detail, I just used a little white-out on mine. But it sure did have me stumped for a bit!!

I hope you enjoy these last few lessons with your students and that you are able to use some of these great resources.

What all have you been doing in your lessons lately? How long of a break are you taking off this Christmas?

Christmas Games

In my first post, I talked briefly about playing games at lessons. How many of you never knew you could play games in your piano lessons? (Raise hands)

Well, to make things so much easier on us piano teachers, there are some great people out there who make up these worksheets games for us to use. Bless them.

Susan Paradis just posted all her holiday games and worksheets (but we'll call them games) in one convenient post for us to pick what we want to use from them. Love it. And I also love how she has snow falling all over this post. (How did she do that??)

Jennifer Fink over at Jen's Piano Studio Blog also is beginning to post some Christmas activities (maybe thats a better word). Here is one she just posted about. I believe I failed to mention this resource in my last post about christmas music, but Jen also has some great Christmas stuff for us to use. You can browse her blog and website to find other creative things she's posted in the past.

Stay tuned for some more updates on Christmas music and activities to use in your lessons!

Christmas Music

Well, it may be a little late for most of you piano teachers, but just in case you were still looking for some last minute Christmas songs, I will go ahead and post where I found some great (translate: free) Christmas songs for my students.

Before I go on, let me give you my philosophy on Christmas music for my piano students. Number one: I let them play non-hymn Christmas carols. (Gasp!) Ok, ok, calm down and let me explain. I do NOT let them play these songs in church....thank you captain obvious. I let them play them just for fun. C'mon, who doesn't like to play all 12 verses of "The 12 Days of Christmas"???

Number Two: I don't assign these songs like normal songs they practice every week. I lighten their load of songs from their lesson books, and give them the Christmas songs to practice and play just for fun. I mean seriously, Christmas only comes once a year, why waste it trying to cram practice time down their throat?? Besides, a lot of times they actually learn more this way, especially if its songs they like. (But don't tell them that.)

Okay, now on to the links:

The Church Pianist (Jenifer Cook) has some great "in church" arrangements. This time great doesn't just translate free, it also translates into "I love her arrangements."

Koerts Music (James Koerts) has a few of those "great" arrangements and also a Christmas book available for purchase.

pdfpiano.com is having a sale right now on Christmas and Thanksgiving music. Also, if you have not already, sign up for their free monthly newletter. Each month they include a piano arrangement. December's will be here shortly, I'm excited to see what Christmas song it might be!

Music Matters Blog - Natalie posted on where she gets her Christmas music

Susan Paradis has some pre-reading and beginner songs that she has adapted. I used several of these for my beginning students that were just dying to play Christmas music. These are those "non-church" songs I was talking about. My students loved them! Especially without the pressure of having to have it all practiced up in a weeks time. For some, I even let them just play it like they heard it in their heads, even if it wasn't exactly what was written. Gasp, I'm a horrible teacher. :)

I also have some books from Soundforth and the like that I am playing out of this Christmas season. I just may let you in on some of those one of these days.

How about you? Where do you find good Christmas Music for your students?? What is your "Christmas Music Philosophy?"