Sharp and Flat Race to Middle C

 

Cecilly has  another game that she has said I can post here. This is a great idea to teach sharps and flats and the direction they move. I can’t wait to try it out with my students.

I made some cards to go with this game that I plan to use, and I’m posting them here to share with you. There are 2 pages, one for flats and one for sharps. Cecilly didn’t have a lot of time to proof these cards for me, but she gave me some quick suggestions for the natural cards. I made them rather quickly, so let me know if you see any mistakes. These cards are not on my web site, but you can print them here: alphabet-cards-sharps-and-flats

 

Here are the directions for this great game, in her own words:

 

Sharp/Flat race to middle C:

Materials: 2 pawns and 2 sets of music ABC letter cards, one marked
as A# B#, etc., the other as Ab Bb, etc. Shuffle each set separately
and place the Flats set to the right side of the piano, the Sharps
set to the left. Have the student choose one set with you having the
other. Sit one your respective side of the bench as your set.

To play, hold card sets face down and place pawns on the highest &
lowest C’s on the piano. Players take turns turning over the top
card from their set and moving their pawn to the nearest key
corresponding with the letter ALWAYS in the direction of middle C and
never going back toward the player’s end of the piano. After all
cards are played, the player who ends up closest to mid. C is the
winner. Switch sides.

The idea is to not only become familiar with identifying the keys as
flats/sharps, but to become more aware (with play always directed
toward center) that flats move down and sharps move up. Get it??

You can also mark some of the letters with a natural sign, just to
mix things up a bit and keep ‘em on their toes (to see if they really
understand that naturals are always white keys)!!

I played the game on a flat paper floor keyboard with each pawn on
the last white key at each end. They were both 18 white keys away
from mid. C. I also placed a little piece of colored highlighter tape
on the mid. C key to make it more obvious what we were both moving
toward. So if you use the actual piano, just count 18 keys away from
mid. C. That distance made the game go quickly and we played “best
out of 3″. I won 2 of the games so the kids definitely want a
rematch next week. Fun fun.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone who reads this and has emailed me this year! I hope the new year will be a blessing to you and your family.

-Susan

“Twister” Game for Piano Lessons

Sheridan sent me an interesting idea to modify the Twister game to help learn the staff.  A lot of music educators say to start large and work down, so this might work with your students.

I haven’t played Twister since I was in high school, but I did a quick search and found Twister is sill being sold and is available at Target for $15.00. You could keep your eyes open at garage sales, or even go raid your parents or grandparents game closet! The picture above is from the original 1966 edition of the game. The one on the market now days looks quite different.  Are any of you old enough to remember this box?    Now I would probably pull a muscle if I tried to play it.

The following is from Sheridan’s email:

“I so enjoy reading all the ideas that you have on your blog. Wanted to contribute some things I thought of this morning. I woke up thinking about the Twister game. I’m going to turn my twister plastic mat over and put a staff on the back – big enough for the kids to use their feet for notes. I’m going to use Black electrical tape for the lines. Also – I’m making a spinner (maybe just using the back of the Twister Spinner?) with the note letters on them (A-G). I’ll probably start out letting them choose to play them on the piano or stand on them on the mat. As they get better I’ll require them to do both – and see how many they can get in a minute (or any other set amount of time). I think incorporating the gross motor skills will really help some of my students who are having a tough time getting the idea of notes on the lines and notes in the spaces.

 In order to space the twister lines – I used my shoe (a big one) and planned for the kids to step sideways (if that makes sense) – so they move right/left up and down the staff as they face/move forward like toward the end of the music. I haven’t made the twister spinner yet but will do that on the computer and just mod-podge it on the back. My spinner comes apart so it should be easy.”

Sheridan also sent me a picture of his homemade magnetic staff and I’ll post that tomorrow.

My New Laminator

I was at WalMart the other day and I saw this laminator for $23.44.  Since I have so many games and cards that I like to laminate, my husband urged me to buy it. He said he could use it  for laminating his hiking maps and photographs.  I came home and immediately tried it out and I am very impressed. It was easy and did a very professional job. I lamintated card stock game boards for one of my games and they were very sturdy. The machine is not big and it heated up in about 8 minutes. The laminating pouches roll through easily on their own. The letter-size (8.5 X 11) pouches are sold in packs of 20 and cost $ 7.77  which is about 34 cents each. The 5 X 7 size of laminating pouches were only $2.38 for a pack of 20.  It’s very hot in Texas some parts of the year (not now!),  and the students’ hands tend to cause the ink to run on my games and flash cards if I don’t laminate them. Those of you in cooler climates may not have this problem.

 If you’re on a strict budget, this might be too expensive for you. In that case, you can laminate with the clear book covers that I mention a lot.  

Using Peppermint Notes

I’ve been using my Peppermint Notes staff with students in the last week. First of all, the staff is not large enough for a peppermint, but we just pretend it is.  I’m going to fix that for next year somehow.  Maybe it doesn’t have to be as long, since we only use one peppermint and move it around.   I drew in a line for middle C, so I’ll add that next year, too.  It isn’t *that* much too big. If you’re a real stickler for that sort of thing, however, use a dime because that fits and is easy to move around. You can still give them a peppermint to eat.

It has been a fun activity  and my students like it. I’ve only spent a little lesson time on it, just something to do away from the piano to add interest to lessons and hopefully learn or reinforce a concept.  It’s been successful to reinforce landmark notes. I’ve found that younger students seem to have more trouble visualizing the peppermint being on a line or a space, but it has been a good way to go over the music alphabet for the ones who haven’t learned their notes yet. We started on A and pushed the candy up the staff going over the music alphabet. Yesterday I really wanted  a thin cord or string  so I could show how the note was really “on the line”.

Here’s some observations I noticed with a student who just turned 5. He had a light-bulb moment when he realized the notes on the staff have the same letters as the keys on the piano. “It only goes to G just like on the piano”. That made the activity worthwhile.  My peppermint staff was working for something!  At the time I thought he didn’t get the difference in the peppermint being on a line or space, that it was too abstract. After several tries, I still wasn’t sure he understood so I let it go. [Note to me: get some red string and try that.] But when we got back to the piano, he was quickly able to find line and space notes on a large grand staff in his piano book, so he was understanding it better than I thought. You know that feeling a teacher gets when she knows she has taught a concept? That’s what teaching is all about to me!

I could have used another staff I’ve made, the Grand Staff for Dimes, for the same purpose, but this one with the Santa and the peppermints added a lot of fun to the lesson so I’m glad I made it. I asked my students and they like having seasonal activities and they overwhelmingly said YES!

If you have anything you would like to share with other teachers, email me and I will post it. You never know who it will help.

Skittles Board Game

 

skittles-game-cards

skittles-game-board

This is a fun game that Cecilly thought up. I only made the cards and the game board. The objective is for students to identify notes on the grand staff. She thought it best to have a black and white staff because the game is colorful enough when the boards are covered with Skittles. Also, a lot of you have black and white printers. Be sure and  laminate the game boards with clear book covers or Contact paper and I highly suggest using card stock for everything. I made the game cards so there would be less cutting on your part but  you may have to adjust it for your printer. Print the game board in landscape and the cards in portrait mode. Print one game board for each student.   These cards are not hard to make, so you might want to make your own, with your own variations. Thanks, Cecilly for another great game.

Here are her directions in her own words.

SKITTLES STAFF GAME:

Prepare a grand staff board on poster board or something similar for each player. Prepare a deck of cards with Clef & letter indicated (Bass F, Treble G, Treble D, Bass C, Middle C, etc.) making multiples of these. Along with these cards, throw in some cards that say: Loose a turn, Take away 2 Reds (make a few of these cards with different colors too), Remove a Treble (or Bass) line (or space) note, Eat all the C’s from the player’s board on your right, Reverse, Skip, Eat a Skittle from each player’s board, Steal a line note (space note) from another player’s board and put it on your’s, etc. etc. (as far as your imagination will go).

 Give each student (or you and the individual student) a king-size individual bag of Skittles. Or you can buy a big bag and place them in a dish for all to draw from.

 To play, players place their boards on the table or floor in front of them with the Skittles & shuffled deck of cards in the center of the playing area (If your staff boards are on copy paper, secure them on a clip board for support. Decide who’s to start with that player drawing the top card and placing a Skittle as directed by the card or following whatever other direction is given. The card is then discarded beside the deck, and play passes to the next player. Reshuffle the discard pile into the deck as needed.

 To win, the first player to have a Skittle on all their lines & spaces wins. Or the player to have the most covered at the end of the playing time wins.

 This is a great way to test their note naming skills.

 Have fun.

Piano Group Lesson Plan

Chele gave me permission to post her Christmas group lesson. When she sent it to me, it sounded like so much fun! I wish she had been my piano teacher. We never did anything like this back in the dark ages. 

 If you have never had a group lesson, or even if you have, it is a good idea to make a lesson plan. I always like to have a little more planned even if I don’t use it. This is especially true if you have a very young group. They go through things fast and something you thought would last 10 minutes is over in 3.  This goes for piano lesson with little ones, too You can see in her group lesson that the students will have fun and learn something.

I might be posting this too late for your group lesson or party this year, but I think it is worth posting for us to get an idea of what other teachers do.  Maybe it will give you some ideas for a Valentine’s group lesson. I know it does me.

                   Chele’s group lesson plan:

Open a gift and play a song.  (living room) Each child takes a turn choosing and opening a gift.  Inside is the name of a song.  Whoever has that song will perform it for the group and then gets to choose the next gift.  Continue until everyone has had a turn.  Have them place their gifts in goodie bags with activity packets to go home at the end of the lesson.  (20 minutes) 

Boomwhackers.  (kitchen table)  Learn some Christmas songs on the boomwhackers, as a group.  (15 minutes) 

Alternating duets.  (living room) Use 2 pianos, with one child on each, both having the same music in front of them.  One plays the LH part, the other plays the RH part.  Then switch.  Maybe have the electric keyboard tuned to bells or something Christmassy-sounding.  (15 minutes) 

Steal the Ornament.  (family room, couches moved aside) Divide the group into 2 teams, facing each other.  Give matching flash cards to each team, so that there is a member of each team that has the same card.  Call out a card.  The two with that card race to get the ornament and go back to their place.  (10 minutes) 

Riddle game.  (family room) Divide the group into 2 teams.   Read a riddle and have each team take turns answering.  Their teammates can help them if needed.  If they can’t answer it, the other team gets to try.  Use Christmas candies as prizes.  Make sure everyone gets a turn.  (10 minutes) 

Musical Christmas Lights.  (kitchen table)  Divide into teams so kids can help each other.   Have kids take turns drawing out an ornament and naming it.  Their team gets to put a marker on their card.  If not everyone knows the term, describe it before naming it.  If new cards are made, we could also play like bingo, and try to get 3 of one color or blackout.  (10 minutes) 

Activity Pages.  Send packets of Christmas activity pages home in goodie bags with their gifts from the first activity.

                        Preparation:   

1. Plan and purchase gifts and candy for use in games.  (bookmarks, candy canes, pencils, something else, small candies to use as bingo markers, other small candies to throw out in riddle game.)

2. Write names of students’ Christmas songs on slips of paper, prepare gifts, and place them under the tree.

3. Choose songs and prepare large song charts for boomwhackers.

4. Choose songs for each pair to play in “alternating duets.”

5. Get flash cards and ornaments ready for relay.

6. Prepare enough cards and game pieces for “musical Christmas lights.”

7. Copy and prepare activity packets.  Roll up and tie with ribbons and place in goodie bag with name on it, so they can add the items from their gift.

 
                Set-Up 

1. Set up electric piano in living room for “Alternating Duets,” and get music ready.

2. Set up boomwhackers and song charts at kitchen table.  Use music stand.

3. Get “Musical Christmas Lights” cards, game pieces, and candy markers ready, and put them on counter.

4. Have activity packets on kitchen counter, ready to go home with students.

5. Prepare family room for relay.  Push aside couch and air hockey table, put away train.  Get flash cards and ornaments for stealing set up.

6. Have riddle game pages and candies ready and set aside, also in family room.

 

6 Musical Christmas Lights Cards

Edit: I made mistakes last night when I posted the PDF files on cards 2, 3 and 4 so I am re-posting them. If you printed them before the edit, please check because some of the cards were labeled incorrectly and you may have more of one and none of another. There should be 6 different colors of tree skirts, so that is how you can check. Thanks so much to Carla for helping me out.   Maybe when you reprint you can just print the ones you need.

Finally I think I have it all solved, except each card will have to be a separate file for you to print. At least this way you can easily print just the cards you want. For these files, you will print directly from a PDF file here and will not be directed back to my web site. If you know how, print 2 to a page. Putting 2 on a page will be my project for next year!

musical-christmas-lights-card-1

musical-christmas-lights-card-2

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musical-christmas-light-card-5

musical-christmas-lights-card-6

Golden Menorah

Golden Menorah  is a composing activity for Chanukah. Use the same suggestions I posted a few days ago for the composing activity Christmas is Coming.  I wrote words to give students the rhythm so they can concentrate on the melody. Hopefully they suit the occcasion.

I searched the web and there are a lot of Chanukah activities, but I didn’t find any specifically for piano teachers. I am going to try to post another one or two suitable for Chanukah this weekend.

It is late to look for Chanukah music, but for beginning students, I like the books by Bruce Berr, Festive Chanukah Songs and Festive Songs for the Jewish Holidays. The second books is suitable for early elementary students and the first one is a little more difficult. David Karp also has two excellent books for early elementary and late elementary students, Jewish Festival and Folk Songs Books one and two.

Christmas gifts for students

Christmas Bookmarks

I like to give my students a little something for Christmas, but if you have a lot of students, the cost can add up. For some teachers this year, there is not a lot of extra money for student gifts. I was thinking that maybe you could wrap up some candy in plastic wrap or  some tissue paper. Stick a candy cane and a pencil in it with one of these bookmarks and tie it with some curly ribbon. Be sure and laminate the bookmarks to keep the ink from running and set your printer to landscape. Clear mailing tape the about the right size for these bookmarks.

This post has 4 book marks on a page, but I also have them as individual sheets. I made a blue one for students who don’t celebrate Christmas. I didn’t make one specifically for Chanukah, but I will if I get some requests. All I have to do is change the wording on the blue book mark.

Email me if you have a favorite and want a PDF of just one sheet of these bookmarks.  If you want to be helpful, take my poll so I can find out which one teachers like the best. Thanks in advance. It helps me know what to post when I get feed back.

 

  

I have a friend who makes things for her students. I used to do that when I only had a few students and could see well enough to do sew.  One thing that was fun was a small felt stocking in the shape of a puffy 8th note filled with some candy.  I would stitch around the edges with a decorative stitch, but I have seen teachers glue the edges.

If you have any ideas for inexpensive gifts, post a comment or send me an email. I’ll share it with other teachers. Let me know if it’s ok to use your name.

Draw the Ornaments

In this worksheet, Draw the Ornaments, the students have to draw the note on the staff instead of just identifying it, as in my other Christmas worksheets. I think it is fun to use different colors, if you have them on hand, but I left that off the instructions to make it more flexible. You can use this at a group lesson while they are waiting for everyone to show up, or for a quiet activity.

If this will be the first time your beginning students have written notes, however, you might want to use pencil because students really seem to have trouble with note placement at first. They have to learn what size to make the note heads, not too large or not too small. Also, so students really have trouble getting the note head right in the middle of the line notes. I tell the students the line goes right through the belly button. 

I didn’t have many requests for the Musical Christmas Lights bingo pieces, but I did email a few PDF’s to those who requested it. Let me know if you are interested. I would like to make some additional cards that are different as suggested. That way you can play with a group.  If I have time I will work on that so you can use it if you have a Christmas group lesson or party next week. You can check here over the weekend or maybe Monday morning.

Tomorrow I have some colorful Christmas bookmarks I would like to share with you.

Four Corners Christmas Game

Ceclilly has a new game that you can play at a holiday group lesson. This might be a good way to choose who plays  at the group lesson. Sometimes I unimaginatively choose names out of a basket. This sounds like more fun. Thanks, Cecilly.

 

FOUR CORNERS CHRISTMAS GAME (sit down version)

Materials: a basket or bag with four different seasonal icon pictures (tree,
star, bell, candy-cane) each equal to the number of players, Christmas
music to either play yourself or on the CD player, and a chair.

Set up: Place the chair in the center of the playing area. Mix up
and place the seasonal icon pictures in scattered fashion face up on
the floor around the chair. Players sit around the periphery of the
playing area.

Objective: to avoid elimination.

To play: Choose someone to be “It”. “It” takes a seat in the chair and
hides her eyes during play. When the music starts, players all at
once get up and quickly but quietly pick an icon picture from the
floor and return to a spot around the periphery of the area. When
the music stops, It keeps head down and eyes closed and covered and
calls out one of the icons. Whoever has that icon is “out”, but
first must perform a Christmas selection at the piano. As they come up to
perform, they return their icon face up on the floor and then return
to their spot. After those players have performed, all icons are
placed back on the floor face up. A new “It” is selected from the
group of performers, and another round begins.

For the second round, when the music starts, all except those
performers, get up to select another icon picture. It could be a new
one or the same one, doesn’t matter. And again, when the music
stops, It calls out one of the icons revealing the next group of
performers.

Now, if It calls out an icon and NO one has chosen that picture, then
no one is out, no one performs that round, and ALL previously
eliminated players are back in (this means they better have a 2nd
piece ready to perform)! A new It is selected from someone who was
previously out.

Continue. playing until either everyone has eventually had an opportunity
to perform, or there’s only 1 player left. If that happens, let the
final player perform.

Urge players to select their icon and return to their spots quickly
as they won’t want to be caught in between when the music stops. If
that happens, they’ll be considered out too and will have to
perform.

VARIATIONS: if you don’t want to incorporate the performing of
prepared pieces into the game, simply assign a silly group perfomance
activity for the eliminated group to do on the spot together. For
example, have the group “Laugh heartily like Santa (HO HO HO),”
or “Sing the first verse of Jingle Bells while standing on 1 leg,”
or “Hold hands and walk in a circle as you sing Jolly Old St. Nick.,”
or “March and sing Deck the Halls,” etc. etc. letting your
imagination go.

Just remember that there needs to be 4 different icons and 4 icons for each  player.

Christmas is Coming

 

Christmas is Coming. The holidays are coming and what can that mean for piano teachers? Sometimes it’s “I didn’t practice this week because _____”. To add to the parties and shopping, my older students have exams next week.

Maybe this might be a good time to work on a composing activity with an elementary student. If you saw yesterday’s post, you recognize these words and the trees. (I like to recycle.)  After the students can say the rhyme in rhythm they are ready to write their melody. Sometimes they will freeze at this point, especially if they have never written any music for you. I usually make up a little example and that seems to relax them. We start on the tonic and I encourage them to end the second measure on the dominant, but of course that all depends on the comfort level and age of your student. However, I insist they end on the tonic. Maybe that’s not being creative and I should encourage a 12 tone row, but somehow the words just don’t move me in that direction.  I’m being silly.  

Getting back to teaching, I have the students write whole notes for the melody first so they can get their melody down quickly.  Then after they are finished we go back and turn them into quarter notes and dotted half notes. This is a pretty open ended worksheet, so if your students are capable, they can write an accompaniment. If a student seems to old for this, but you would like to use it anyway, encourage them to write a song for a younger sibling, or even for one of your younger students. Older students get insulted easily, but if they know that it’s just an exercise in writing a children’s song, they are relieved. You might tell the older student that writing easy music that sounds good is not so easy!

Don’t be discouraged if they start to lose interest and just write any old note to get it finished. This is perfectly natural. Young children have short attention spans, plus, if they really have a talent, they need to go home and doodle with the melody. It’s hard for a creative child to come up with a melody on the spot, but they can sketch out something. Tell them to take it home and erase the parts they don’t like. Remind them to always use a pencil!

Some kids just write notes without even playing them on the piano, showing no interest.  At least they are getting some theory practice and you can discover who really likes to compose.

This activity takes a lot of time if you do it correctly, so it is a great thing to do when a student has nothing prepared to play for you. Let me know how it works for you and any suggestions you may have. If I get a good response, I will make something similar for Valentine’s Day.

Christmas Train

Christmas Train was one of the most time consuming  activities I have made. I wanted to design and draw  a seasonal composing activity to use with very young beginning students. I wanted them to write in  finger numbers for a melody, with the rhythm and words already done for them. I had a design sketched out by hand, and it was easy. But drawing it on the computer proved to be more difficult. If I had made it straight and not curved the text and train cars, it would have been a lot easier. Musically, I probably should have not used 3/4 time, but my mind was stuck on these words.

Here is how I will use it. Tap the rhythm out while saying the words in a 3 meter, accenting the first beat slightly so they feel the meter.  Tap the first line with the RH and the second line with the LH. I call it the green and red hands to match the train engines. Once they start to compose the melody they can use any 5-finger position but be sure you have them start and end on the tonic. (You can tell them that the first note is home and the  trains start and end at home. The bass line can be exactly the same notes as the treble line, but they will discover the finger numbers are different.  This activity will also give them some more finger number practice.   If young children have trouble playing with finger numbers, you know they are not ready for notes.

I designed this for pre-school and kindergarten children, but you can probably use it with first grader, too. This week, I hope to post another paper to put this melody on the staff.

Holiday Group Lesson Idea

Roxane  http://www.leepianostudio.com/  not only sent me her idea for a great holiday group lesson, but she sent me a picture, too! I love to get pictures and PDF’s  of other teacher’s ideas, because I have a hard time visualizing things just by reading.  If you want to send me an idea of something you’ve made and don’t know how to make a PDF, get someone to take a picture and email it to me.

What is really good about Roxane’s group lesson is the planning she did in advance to have the gingerbread theme. I wish I was that organized. When I taught Kodaly, we had this little phrase we sang: The Rhythm is the Way the Words Go. So when we use different words with rhythms such as choc-0-late or blue-ber-ry we are actually teaching the beginning of composing. Tomorrow I’m going to post a 2 line rhyme with pictures for students to use for composing a Christmas song.

Roxane gave me permission to post her picture, and  the following is from her email. She took the picture early in the morning without good light, she said, but, Roxane, I think it’s great! Thanks for letting me post this.

 ”We’re having a gingerbread man themed group class today and will be focusing on rhythm after the performance.  In early November I gave each student part of the gingerbread man story for which they composed a short piece.  We’re performing those compositions today.  After class we’ll do rhythm activities, using Cecilly’s rhythm chairs.  For a quarter note, I’ll say bread, for an eighth note, gin-ger, for a triplet, choc-o-late and for a sixteenth note, pis-ta-chi-o .  I also made gingerbread cookies starting at 4:30 this morning  and drew rhythms on them with frosting.  You’ll see in the attached picture. I may ask the students to count and clap the rhythm on the gingerbread man cookie before they get to take them home.”

Three Strikes, Toss a Card, and Uncover

Good morning, teachers.   Cecilly has some more ideas to use with flash cards that I’m posting today. If you don’t have any flash cards, there are several sites you can get some. D’net and Wendy have a set (see my links) and I have a set, too, on my web site. I am going to expand my set over the holidays with ledger line notes.

The first game is called Three  Strikes. I plan to use this with some students who love base ball but all student should like it.

Place flash cards in a bag along with 3 cards that are marked with an X on them (strikes). The student pulls a card hoping to avoid a strike. Answer the non-strike cards as long as possible until there are no more, or the student has pulled all 3 strike cards and ultimately “strikes out.”

The next game is called Toss A Card. If you want to use the clap the rhythm variation, you can get rhythm flash cards from D’net.

Scatter the flash cards  on the floor randomly. Toss a bean bag and do whatever the card requires (name/play the note, clap the rhythm, etc.).

Cecilly’s last game I”m going to post today is Uncover.

Lay whatever flashcards you want to use on a table or floor with another colored piece of paper on top of them. Place 1 additional colored piece of paper on the table but with no flashcard underneath. This is the one to avoid. Ask student to “uncover” a card and answer it. If they can successfully uncover all the cards while avoiding the empty one, they are the winner. The game stops when the empty one is uncovered.

Rhythm in the Grid with Eighth Notes

Notice there is no holiday theme to this handout, Rhythm in the Grid with Eighth Notes? That’s because I thought I posted it back in the summer. I can only find the one I made with 16th notes so I’m posting this now. Maybe if you have a student who has trouble understanding dotted quarters, this graphic will help. Sometimes you have to try different ways to explain things because everyone learns differently.  

There have been many helpful hints posted in the comments section. For cutting the Rhythm Pizza on foam board, kitchen shears has been suggested. Another teacher saves on printing by putting worksheets in a clear sheet protector and using  a dry erase marker. It can be erased and used over and over. Thanks for the great ideas.

Musical Christmas Lights

I have been putting off posting Musical Christmas lights this because I never felt it was finished. It is a bingo type game and students can win by covering three of the same color or you can play “black out”, depending on how much time you have.  The sheet probably has some things your beginning students don’t know such as the natural sign and the 16th note. In that case, for my beginning students, I’m just going to describe what the symbol looks like when I call out the name.  My idea is that if they start hearing the names of some of these symbols,  they will remember them better when they actually get to it.

I didn’t make any teacher cards for this, but I did make a sheet of 40 little ornaments with the symbols on it that you can cut out and either use as game chips, or to draw and call out the symbol.  If anyone is really interested in that and wants to do a lot of cutting, let me know and I’ll send it to you personally in an email.

I have been working on a project for students to write their own melody inside a Christmas train. It is taking me a lot longer than I thought. It seemed like such a good idea when I sketched it out but getting it into Photoshop has turned out to be a real time waster. If I have another sleepless night, I may get it finished before Christmas. It is for beginning students who are still in the pre-reading stage. 

Yesterday my students really enjoyed Peppermint Notes. I left off the line for Middle C. Did anyone notice? Maybe you can draw it in yourself with a red pen. The train you see in the photo is battery powered and cost $1.00. I let students play with it while they wait and for such a simple toy, they have a lot of fun.  It is what gave me the idea for a Christmas train composing sheet. My philosopy is that young children take piano for the train ride, not for the destination. That’s the opposite of how adults and a lot of teachers look at it. I just love teaching children!

The Dynamics Hide and Go Seek Game

I thought I would post another game from Cecilly that you can play if you have a Christmas party. This is semiliar to one I used to play when I taught school and I remember the kids really having fun. However, I had totally forgotten about it and I’m grateful to Cecilly for sharing.

 

Now, after the active games, the kids should be ready for a sitdown kind of game. Here’s a fun one:

          The DYNAMICS HIDE & SEEK Game

Using some kind of small music object or flashcard (like a quarter note), select someone to be the “hider”

and someone to be the “seeker. The “seeker” must leave the playing area for a brief minute while the “hider” hides the object somewhere in the playing area (it cannot be completely hidden, but must be visible upon discovery). Then the “hider” goes to his seat with everyone else seated about the room.

 Go get the “seeker” who comes into the room and begins to look for the object. Now, the group can help the seeker by chanting the name of the object over and over, but if the seeker moves away from the objects hiding place the group uses a quieter voice. If the seeker begins to move closer, their chanting grows louder. The groups “dynamic” level literally steers the seeker to the object.

When she’s right on the object, the group will be chanting in full fortissimo voice. When the seeker finds the object, everyone yells “BRAVO” and applauds.

 After each round, choose a new hider and seeker. This allows for just about everyone to play the more active roles.

Peppermint Notes

I made the graphic Peppermint Notes to use real peppermint candy as notes. Play with it any way you like, in groups or with one student. Then eat the candy when you finish. (This link takes you to my web site. Click preview and then you can print it. You will need to down load Adobe Reader in order to print. Be sure and set your printer to landscape.)

Here’s another way you can use it this sheet. Print two copies, one on card stock and one on regular paper. Cut out the Santa (if your hands can cut that small) and use him to guess which note Santa is standing on. This might be fun for the younger students. I’m going to try it with some students who haven’t learned the notes yet, just as an introduction. By the time they finish with pumpkins, turkey eggs, ornaments, and Santa, I hope they get the idea.  But if they don’t, I already have valentine notes for February and shamrock notes for March.  Can you guess that I used to teach music in elementary school?

I drew the Santa. My daughter helped me with the shading. She’s so fast, she can do in a minute what I struggle with all morning. The peppermint clefs are my own design that I created in Photoshop.