The Best Of: Easter Activities Edition

Welcome to The Best Of: where I round up some great links for you from around the www. that I have enjoyed this week! PS: These links are best enjoyed with a hot cup of coffee. :)

Susan Paradis has a  new worksheet Bunny Basics (as well as a whole host of other Easter activities...which you should be able to see if you go here.)

Melody at The Plucky Pianista has several Easter activities: an Easter Egg Scramble, Easter Egg Scavenger hunt in Middle C position, Easter Egg Scavenger hunt Elementary,  and Easter Egg Scavenger Hunt Early Elementary

Pianoanne says Hooray for Eggs! =)

I am sure there will be more links as Easter draws closer. For now, does anyone know of any I've missed?

Have some great online musical content that you don't see featured? Perhaps I don't know about it! Leave me a comment so I can check it out! =)

The Best Of: St. Patrick's Day Edition

Welcome to The Best Of: where I round up some great links for you from around the www. that I have enjoyed this week! PS: These links are best enjoyed with a hot cup of coffee. :)

Super short list today, but wanted to share some new games ala St. Patrick's Day!

Susan Paradis made my job easier, and complied all her St. Patrick's Day related games and activities here. (Includes composing activities, games, and worksheets!)

Sarah designed some Shamrock Interval Builder Cards that look easy to use this coming week!

I did some internet hunting, but this was all I could come up with for St. Patricks day! Does anyone else know of some other resources/links that you could share with us? We'd love to hear! Just leave a comment below. Also, tell us what you are doing to celebrate this week with your students!

The Best Of: Considerations Edition

Normally I post "The Best Of:" on Friday afternoons, but my computer was giving me fits and would not post! Instead, you get to enjoy a Monday edition, so sit back and enjoy some great reads. Happy Monday!

Welcome to The Best Of: where I round up some great links for you from around the www. that I have enjoyed this week! PS: These links are best enjoyed with a hot cup of coffee. :)

Some things to Read:
Don't Warm Up - WHAAATT?? Greatest piano tip ever! :)
Adding Another Dimension to your Studio - Karate? Who knew?
Called to Authenticity - do we take this call seriously enough?
I Have Been doing this for 30 Years 
Teaching Tips from Snowboard School - this has been a great series so far! Who would have known that snowboard school and piano could go together! :)
Congregational Accompaniment Considerations - 3rd in a series of great posts

Specifically for teachers:
Assignment Notebook/Pages for Students - Joy has such and interesting discussion going on in the comments section! It is inspiring to learn from other teachers!
When Students Forget Their Books - 25 great ideas

Giveaways!
Vintage sheet music candle (ends today!!!)
Music-inspired necklaces (ends Thursday)

What musically-inspiring things have you been reading this week??

The Best Of: New Games and other stuff Edition

Welcome to The Best Of: where I round up some great links for you from around the www. that I have enjoyed this week!


Piano Finger Twister from Joy (looks like so much fun!)

Smash Hit Games with the Eggspert (again, why can't I be the student?)

Jennifer uses the Eggspert Quizzing System to play Accidental Adventure

Want to listen to some phenomenal pianists? Listen to music from Carnegie Hall!

Here are the goodies: Hal Leonard is offering 40% off select teacher resources until the end of March!

Slightly humorous, but so very important are the truths in this post about the person hiding in your church's back closet!!!!

Any other great links that you have read this week that you would like to share with us? Please do!

The Best Of: Food For Thought Edition

Welcome to a new weekly series of posts, "The Best Of:" where I am delighted to be able to share some of my favorite reads from around the web with you - all musically related, of course! Here's what I've enjoyed reading this week:


When Unwillingness in Practice is a Good Thing - What? Unwillingness is good? Read the post. :)

Piano Books as Gifts - Great thoughts!

Do You Have to Have a Degree to be a Good Piano Teacher? - Consequently, having a degree doesn't necessarily make you a good teacher, either. But I digress.

Teaching the Congregation a New Song - Especially for song leaders, but equally important for their pianists, too!

Joy-oh-joy! The traditional Wedding March is getting a makeover! Can't wait for that to come out!

And a free arrangement of It Is Well With My Soul - one of my favorite songs!

Happy Weekend Everyone! What have you enjoyed reading this week?

 

Recital Post Updated

A few weeks ago I posted some links to some great recital ideas. I have been updating that post to include more and more links, so click here to head to that post and receive some recital inspiration! Seriously, some of you have the greatest ideas. And if you are as un-creative as I am, you and your students will benefit from ideas gleaned from other teachers.

If you know of other recital posts that I don't have listed, leave me a comment and tell me about them so I can include them in this list. Hopefully this will be a resource we can use for years to come!

How did your year-end recital go?

Goodbye to Jen's Piano Studio Blog

Yes, you read that right. Jen's Piano Studio Blog is leaving us. But never fear! It is turning into Pianimation instead!

Jen is combining the valuable resources found at her blog and her studio website into one great place, Pianimation. It appears that this will make it much easier for us to use her resources. Thank you, Jen!

And in honor of the move Jen is offering a discount and a giveaway! Go here for all the details. You won't want to miss it!

Check out Pianimation and be sure to update your information if you already followed her blog.

Exciting New Posts For Parents

I am super excited about a new series of posts that Laura is writing over at The Piano Studio! Today she started "Monday Piano Parent Tips." Her first tip for parents is to read your child's assignment notebook to stay in the know about what is expected of your student. SUCH a great tip! Something every parent needs to remember. Head on over to her blog to read what she has to say about this issue!

These posts will be invaluable to teachers and parents. Let the parents of your students know about these posts! If you send out monthly letters/updates, you could include a reminder for parents to check Laura's latest tips. Hopefully, if your student's parents read these posts, it will encourage them to start clicking around on other posts and other sites and learn more themselves! Parents do not need to be "musical" to read music blogs and websites....they can learn a lot that will simply help them help their children at home!

I would strongly encourage parents to read these other posts by Laura: "How I Became a Tiger Mom and Why" and "When Should You Let Your Child Quit Piano?" (Just the title is exciting!)

Thanks, Laura, for the great reads! We're already looking forward to next week!

Why I Have Been Eating Skittles All Week

As a fun activity this week, my students and I played Susan Paradis Skittles game at the end of their lessons. It is a good thing that I don't have many students, or I would be fat! As it was, by the end of the week I felt "skittled out." :) But it is such a fun game that I don't mind.

All my students eyes light up when they see the skittles, and most say, "Are we going to eat those??" No, we're just going to look at them...

I was a little unsure about what I was going to do with my youngest student, who doesn't yet know the notes on the staff. I thought I would make cards for him that said "line note" and "space note" but that seemed a little boring and not too much of a review. Then, I read the great idea Sarah had about using a tabletop keyboard instead. Perfect! It worked like a charm. We just disregarded the "Treble" and "Bass" directions and went by the letter names. Here are some pictures:

You can get these tabletop keyboards here.

This is just one example of those fun games I talk about from time to time. It reviews and reinforces the notes in such a fun (and yummy!) way. I find it to be "the game that never ends," so we usually just have a set time to play it or play through the deck of cards a certain number of times. It is a great learning incentive!

Anyone else been playing any learning games lately?

You Guys Make Me Ink!

If you've ever watched "Finding Nemo," you know the title for this post is a quote. But seriously, you all do make me ink. Well, you make my printer ink. Because you all provide such great printable material that I can't help it! I am so thankful for all of the great resources.

No matter how great they are, we all know that all these great printables leave us a little lacking on the ink side of things. Which then leaves our pockets devoid of moola, because ink is expensive. Well, sorrow no further!

A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of Printer Filling Station, a company that supplies ink and refill kits at a waaaaaay cheaper price. They have ink for EVERY printer imaginable! Betcha didn't know that your ink cartridges were refillable, did you? Neither did I, but I am happy to report that I am a firm believer in it now!

I bought black and color ink for my printer, and the kits came with very simple instructions and the syringes to fill the cartridges. Seriously, I felt like a mad scientist. It was great. I spent as much money as I normally do for a set of cartridges, but the amount of ink I got will refill my printer many, many times. Such a better investment for my money!

I had a little trouble with my black ink cartridge, but the folks at Printer Filling Station were very helpful, and we got the ink running after a while. I had let the cartridge go empty before I filled it, and I guess HP ink is kinda fussy that way. So now I just keep my cartridges topped off, and everything runs smoothly.

So give them a try! I am sure you will not be disappointed. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! I can not say enough good about my experience with Printer Filling Station.

I hope to add a list to my sidebar soon of resources such as Printer Filling Station. Stay tuned!

Interview with Natalie

I recently read a very interesting interview with Natalie from Music Matters Blog. You can find the interview here at Easy Ear Training. I love reading anything Natalie writes about anyway, but I found this interview very thought provoking. I enjoyed reading more about Natalie's piano lessons as a child. I am hoping that none of us piano teachers fold laundry during lessons!

Another interesting part of the article was what Natalie had to say about helping students listen to their own music. This is a difficult concept to get across to students! (And I find, that just because they do it at the lesson in no way guarantees that they do it at home! :S)

Thank you, Natalie, for your insight! I hope to implement some of these things into my own teaching.

Ways to Use Resources

In my last post, I talked about how to keep all the very helpful information we get of the internet straight, and how to decide what is best for your own students and studio.

Today I am sharing an example of how to make all of the games, activities, worksheets, etc. work for you in accomplishing your goals. This is just a suggestion, this may not work for you, but it may get some wheels rolling in your mind to help you along your way. At least, I hope it helps you along your way!

Note names and recognition is probably one of the most important things a student learns in their first months of lessons. So because most of my students fall into that category, I decided to take this semester of lessons as "Note Recognition Emphasis Semester." Ok, so I don't really call it that, blech, but we do have this as our emphasis.

My goal is to get all my students in the "One Minute Club", an idea and resource from Susan Paradis. This encourages them to be able to play and say all the notes on the staff in a minute or less. They already were using flashcards, so this just gives them an extra motivation to learn them! All of them have accepted the challenge and are making rapid progress.

So with this as our goal, I plan many note-related games, activities and worksheets to help drill those notes. Let me just tell you, the possibilities are ENDLESS!!! I have had so much fun brainstorming ideas and coming up with activities, or adapting activities to fit what I need. Here are a few resources I have used:

I used this sheet and the Shamrock cards in a variety of ways! Students can draw a card, and then put a small gem on the appropriate note until they fill in all the spots. I also used the cards to have a race against the student down the keyboard. (I believe I read about that activity somewhere, but I don't remember where! If you know, please remind me!) Susan has some suggestions of her own at the bottom of the post, some of those may work for you as well.

I have a large treble staff and a large bass staff that I made when I was in college. I use them again and again! For one activity, I gave the student the bass staff and I took the treble staff. We then rolled one of these dice from Joy that has the music alphabet, and we each tried to fill in our staff first. Bass clef always seems to be harder for the students to learn, so by giving them the bass staff they were able to concentrate on those notes.

Susan Paradis also has these cards with the musical alphabet on them, and these can be used in a variety of ways, as well as the way shown on this post. I have a large grand staff that I drew on a poster board, and these cards work great on that. Here they are again, only bigger!

I also use some timed drills every so often to give the students a bit of a challenge. Here are the drills I use most frequently, (scroll down to "Ready Set Go!" Speed Tests) but I also use these. Some students really like the challenge of getting them all right, and then trying to beat their time on the next line.

Oh, and in case you were wondering what flashcards I use....these ones can not be beat! They are my all time favorite and include many things for the student to drill, not just notes.

Well, there are oodles of possibilities out there! Did you get that picture yet?? :) And this is just in one area of piano! Hopefully this gives you an idea, though, of how to put everything together and make it fit your needs.

What other ways do you incorporate these things into your teaching??

Policy Links

Here are some of the links I have received to some of my reader's policies:

Emily's

Sarah's (Scroll down and click on "studio policy")

Mandy's

I encourage you to read through these, especially if you are in the process of writing your own policies. Reading through someone else's is a great place to start! Of course, there may be certain circumstances special to your teaching environment that you need to address in your policies. Just adapt to fit your needs!

Here are links to a couple others that I referred to to write my own policies:

Natalie's

Jen's

I hope that this information is helpful to you. If you would still like to link up with your policies, feel free! And if you are working on writing your own and would like me to read over them, I'd love to! I am not saying I have all the answers, but I'd do my best!

Valentines Resources

It seems like we just finished with a holiday, but here is another one looming in the near future! Before it sneaks up on us too much, I wanted to share with you some links for Valentines activities for your students.

Susan Paradis (you knew I was going to say that, didn't you??) made my job easier and put links to all her Valentines material in one easy post. Keep checking her site, however, because she may come out with some new things between now and February 14th. You just never can tell. And have I ever mentioned how much I love using things from her site??

Sheryl at Notable Music Studio posted about this fun "Musical Hearts" activity she is using with her students. I had seen some of these foam hearts at the dollar store, so I decided to give it a try!!! Here are some pictures of the ones I made:

I was just a little nervous about having to draw on these, because I am about as artistic as a...well, there are no words to describe it. Lets just say, its bad. But actually, I found that it wasn't too hard to draw on the foam. The sharpie kind of sunk in and helped me draw straight.

I used many of the same ideas as Sheryl did, except for I didn't make mine quite so specific, so that I could use them with any age group. For instance, in the picture above, you see one with a keyboard and a star on Middle C. For beginning students, I can have them tell me if that is a group of two or a group of three black notes. If they know the notes on the piano, they can tell me which note it is. For my intermediate students, I can ask them to play that scale. I think this way will leave me with a lot of flexibility for each student to participate. I plan to use these next week in lessons, so I'll let you know how it goes!

Info Sheet for New Students

I have had people ask in the past, and someone asked me recently, about the information sheet I use for my new students. So I decided to write a post about it for you all!

Now you'll know my secret...I actually use these files from Natalie over at Music Matters Blog. I have thought about making my own that suit my needs, but for now these are working great. There is one for the student, one for the parent, and some activities to determine where the student is musically. She also has a similar file for transfer students.

What I usually do is highlight the questions I want the student or parent to answer. For each new student it has been different. For instance, some of my students are adults, and so they don't bring their parents to the lessons. No kidding, right? :) So in this case, I highlight things from the student sheet and the parent sheet for them to fill out.

Another thing that makes a difference is how well I know the student. I may not need to know some things about them, like their parents names. Just depending on the circumstance. Highlighting seems to work well. Maybe one of these days I will write out my own sheets, but I think these ones work great!

Do you have a method you use that you would like to share??

Update

Not much going on here because of the flurries of Christmas activities! However, I did put some new links in my blogroll on my side bar, and I encourage you to check them out! I have not had time to fully peruse each one, but I hope to more over the next few days. Enjoy! And let me know what you think!

Merry Christmas!