Easter Bunny – An On the Staff Version

Easter Bunny

I promise I will not post anymore versions of Easter Bunny! Fortunately my students aren’t getting tired of it!

This version is really good for a student in Primer or Level 1 who has just learned staccato notes and wants to try them out. And if they can play it right away, that’s even more fun for them. There are skips in this piece, so if your student needs a little help with that, let her find and circle them and practice in the air and on the piano cover.

There are 2 pages to this version and a duet that is very simple. An older sibling or parent can play along. I hope your student will have a hoppy time playing this!

Don’t forget that I have posed an Easter bunny composing printable for beginners that you can do this week, as well as many Easter worksheets. Also, here is a Passover worksheet to learn notes.  PassoverEggNotes

An Easier Version of Easter Bunny

Easter Bunny

I promised yesterday that I would post a shorter version of Easter Bunny. This version came about when I realized that I wrote the original too difficult for my preschool student. While the version I posted yesterday was great for another student, teaching preschool children often requires short songs that repeat. She was so happy to get this, just in time for the Easter bunny!

Be sure to set your printer orientation to landscape when you print this version.

One of the reasons I wrote this tune was to give students a little extra practice with the 4th finger. Beginners often get the 2nd and 4th fingers mixed up. It takes even longer for preschool children to get the concept. I have a bag of plastic rings in all kinds of cute shapes that I bought from the dollar store. She chose a color and put a ring on each 4th finger. That made the biggest difference in her ability to enjoy playing this little song. Here is a picture of the rings on finger 3. You can see how it helps to put the rings on finger 4 as they play this piece.

If you want some even easier seasonal music on the black keys that can be used at a student’s first lessons, check out my left and right hand versions of Hot Cross Buns. The left hand version is here. Children who celebrate Easter enjoy learning about the tradition of  hot cross buns. I have also posted some sacred pre-reading and level 1 versions of hymns suitable for the Easter season. You can look at them in the music section of my website, www.susanparadis.com.

A Fun Pre-Reading Easter Bunny Song

Easter Bunny

I wrote a little song about the Easter Bunny in several different levels of difficulty. This is the first version. It is suitable for young beginners who are comfortable with the thumbs on the white keys. I have an 8-measure version in landscape orientation and I will post that tomorrow. I also have an on-the-staff version for students in their 2nd method book (Level 1 in most methods, Level 2 in Hal Leonard)  that I am working on. This is the reason I like to self publish. I can customize music for different levels.

To help students who get their hands mixed up, I like to highlight the right and left hands with 2 different colored highlighters. If you have never done this in their lesson book you will be surprised how helpful it is. Students enjoy picking out the colors and that adds a little motivation. (Try to find a set with purple. It’s very hard to come by!) We all have students who focus on one hand and need some extra help to get them together. Some students always get the left and right hands mixed up, as well as some adults, such as me! Simple songs like this can really help that problem before they move on to reading on the staff.

Blogging is a spare time activity for me, and I have not had time to post all the spring time material I’ve made. Sometimes things sit in my files for years before I have time to modernize, revise, and post it. Thank you for all your suggestions, and thanks for understanding! I really appreciate and have learned so much from my readers and the blogging community.

Do you find it helpful for me to highlight the hands like this? Leave a comment if you do. You may remain anonymous!

Bunny to Color Piano Keys

Bunny Keys

The younger the beginning student, the more they need reinforcement on concepts they have learned. Just because they know it today doesn’t mean they will remember it tomorrow! This is why some piano teachers get frustrated teaching younger children. You have to set your frustration meter very high!

With that in mind, I created a little puzzle for students to color in order to reinforce the names of the keys. One of my students loves bunnies, and around the Easter season is a good time for coloring bunnies.

This worksheet is in black and white for those of you without access to a color printer, or if you want to save ink. (The green watermark is not on the copy you will print.) I hope your young students enjoy coloring this. I know I have one who will!

Objectives

• To reinforce the names of piano keys
• To practice fine motor skills and writing letter names
• To enjoy a seasonal activity

Ages

• Preschool and elementary age children to about 3rd grade

Material

• Worksheet
• Crayons (brown can be substituted for pink)
• Pencil

Bunny Basics

Bunny Basics

One of my students has a pet bunny, so I made a music note story worksheet for her. I am sharing it with you in case you are looking for something for the Easter season. You can use it at a group lesson or give it to an individual student.

I learned some new facts about rabbits while I worked on this and maybe you will, too!

Easter Season Games and Printables

Front                                                            BackEaster Egg Hunt

You might have seen this game last year, but I am posting it again for teachers new to this site. You will have to print on both sides, so be sure to adjust your printer settings carefully before you start. Cut them out and hide the eggs around your studio. Your younger students will be so excited when you tell them they are going on an Easter egg hunt!  When they find an egg, they clap or tap the rhythm. If your students can’t clap 8th notes, print only the first side and write in the rhythms you want to use. It is a fun diversion and a nice treat at the end of a lesson. Plus, students get to practice reading rhythms! If Easter eggs are not appropriate for your students, give me a suggestion and I might be able to come up with something else.

As an aside, and coming from a music education specialist,  *quarter, quarter, two eighths, quarter*, is the easiest rhythm pattern for children to clap. It is the first rhythm clapping pattern I start with. Just because eighth notes are not in beginning piano books doesn’t mean you  have to wait for the second or third year of piano to learn them.  Students can learn all sorts of rhythm patterns before they actually play them in their music, using syllables or words to clap the rhythm.

Here are some more Easter season activities from my website, including two composing activities for beginners. In the Music section of my website, www.susanparadis.com you can also find some beginning hymns you might be able to use. I also have a Mother’s Day composing printable.

• Easter Egg Notes
• Easter Egg Find the Notes
• See the Bunny - a pre-reading composing activity
• See the Bunny - an on the staff composing activity
• Follow the Bunny Trail

Easter Rhythm Games

I am posting several games to play the week before Easter. Some teacher will be having group lessons and these games might come in handy if you have younger students.

Easter Egg Find the Notes

Here are how the cards look when printed and cut out.

This first game can be played with one student or a small group. After printing the cards in landscape format, cut them out and fold them so the egg is on one side and the note on the other. Hide them around the room. Ask the student to find all the quarter notes, or find all the whole notes. Little ones love to play this. For older children, set your timer and have a timed race. You might need to print out more than one copy. From experience I have found that if they are laminated they do not fold well unless you only laminate one side. These cards are similiar to the  Quarter Note Hunt game that I posted a  while ago. If you don’t want the Easter Eggs on your cards, print out the earlier version, but the rhythms are a little different.

Easter Egg  Hunt

The second  game can be played more than one way, but it was designed for a group. Of course you can modify it for one student.  First, there are 2 pages and they need to be printed front and back on card stock so the rhythms are on the back of the eggs. If my rhythms don’t suit your students, print just the colored page and write in your own rhythms on the back.

After printing the front and back twice, I cut out the eggs and laminated them. The next step was to cut out the eggs after they were laminated.  I used this two step process because I have trouble cutting laminated card stock in circles. Usually I design things with straight lines so I can cut them with my paper cutter.

You have a choice of games with these cards.  You can hide them around the room and let a student or a group of students look for them. When all the cards are found, the student will clap  the rhythm of the card he found.   This is a good hide a seek game for students too old to play the first game. Be sure to print enough cards for your group.

Another way to use these cards  is to sit in a circle and pass the cards to some music. Older students like to play the music while younger ones pass cards. Have one less card than the number of students. When the music stops, everyone has to clap their rhythm card, and the student without a card is out.  Or you can pass one card and whoever has it when the music stops has to clap it. Well, the possibilities are endless and I’m sure you will have a lot better ideas than me! If older students are playing, you really will have to print some blank cards and draw  some harder rhythms.

Last week I posted a staff with little eggs on it for notes. This week, all the younger students are going to use it with jelly beans as notes on the staff. Then when we’re finished I’m going to let them choose a plastic egg that has a little chocolate egg inside and a rhythm note. If they know the name of the rhythm value, they can put all their jelly beans inside the egg and take it home. If they get it wrong (and I don’t think any will, because by now they all know their rhythm note values) I’ll let them keep trying until they get it right.  I want all that candy out of the house and I want them to go home happy!

Notate “See the Bunny” on a staff

Some elementary students are too old to use the pre-reading composition activity I posted a few days ago. My older elementary students, around 2nd to 4th grade,   want to write it on a staff.  Students older than that don’t want bunnies and jelly beans, so we start with staff paper.  Today I am posting a companion to the pre-reading See the Bunny composition activity I posted last week. In a few weeks I hope to post some composing sheets for older students.

The composition activity sheet I am posting today is too long  to complete in one lesson unless you have a lesson devoted solely to composition.  There are several ways to speed it up:

• The teacher can write in the notes for the student.
• Have the students write only whole notes on the staff and later change them into quarter and half notes.
• Keep the activity in a folder and work on it over a longer time period.

You probably have some more ideas, so pass them along.

I received some requests from teachers to post this. If you have any students complete this activity, it would make my day to see their compositions. If you don’t have a scanner you can use a camera phone  and send it to my email address.

To print today’s post, click here.

See the Bunny – a composing activity

See the Bunny – a  Composing Activity

One of  my younger students like to write rhymes. He told me they go through his head all the time and he can’t get them to stop, so he has to write them down. I told him I know exactly what he means. The same thing happens to me except mine have melodies that go along with them.  I jot them down on scrap paper, napkins, receipts, anything really. If I don’t write the melody down, I’ll forget it, so in my purse there are little scraps of paper with sol-fa syllables written under these simple rhymes. I have no idea where they come from in my head, but it’s been going on all my life. They’re not suitable for anything but children’s primer music.  Still, I hope my students and maybe some of yours, too, enjoy my efforts.

Several students wanted a composing activity for Easter, and as I was stopped at a red light a few days ago, I wrote this one down. The hardest part, really, is when my students start making up their own melody to go with the words. I have to try very hard not to suggest the tune in my head and let them come up with their own ideas.

A rhyme this long might take too long at a lesson, so maybe it would be a good idea to do one line a week. The average child has a hard time doing this at home, so that’s why I do it at the lesson. Most children like to create melodies, just as they like to draw and do crafts. We just have to help them along a little.

If I have time and get enough requests,  I’ll make another sheet with lines and spaces for older children.

He Is Risen, a pre-reading Easter carol

He Is Risen  is a beautiful Easter carol in a pre-reading version. The words were written by the same woman who wrote the words to All Things Bright And Beautiful, a hymn I have arranged for elementary level and posted on my web site.

The hand position might be a little different since the 3rd finger of the RH is on middle C. There are several skips in this hymn, so see if your student can find and circle them. Practice playing them in the air. This will be good practice for when they are reading notes on the staff.

If you have a beginning student who would like to play sacred Easter hymn, try out this one. Your students might not know it,  but I think they will like it after they learn the melody.  If you would like to play a duet with your student,  look this up in your hymnal and play along.