Fishy Scales Revised with a Very Sad Minor Fish!

Minor                                 Major

Fishy Scales

If you’re not using Fishy Scales to motivate your students to practice 5-finger scales, cross-overs, or octave scales, you might want to try this out for the new teaching year with your elementary age students.  They are recently revised after a suggestion from one of my students to draw the minor fish “sad-looking.” I’m sharing the new design with you. (The major fish is the same.)

Now it is easier to identify minor sounds because students can relate it to the fish. Younger students are always asking me why some of the fish are a different color, and this is a good opportunity to let them hear the difference in major and minor chords.

After I started using Fishy Scales my students practice their scales with more enthusiasm. I make a fish for each student, and as they learn a scale they are very excited to write the name in the “scale” on their fish. When they complete a scale set, I give them their fish to keep and we post a new one for the next set.

I keep them on my wall with  reusable lightweight mounting strips, which come in all sizes. They are very easy to remove when I don’t want “fish” on my piano room wall, and easy to replace.

Print them out on card stock for best results, and cut each page on the lines. There is no need to cut out each fish individually. My students also write on the card what they are working on, such as Octave Scales or 5-Finger Scales.

Thanks to Arlene Steffen for the idea for Fishy Scales. It really is a lot of fun, good motivation, and is very easy for a teacher to implement.

School Is Starting Back – a pre-reading piece with duet

School is Starting Back

I composed this little solo for a beginning student who has taken long enough to play on the white keys. In order to avoid skipping fingers I tried to make all the notes seconds. Sometimes that leaves a little to be desired when it comes to melody. Although Beethoven was able to produce the greatest 5-finger melody ever written using only seconds and a couple of skips,  I don’t have that ability by any means! However, I added a teacher duet you can play along to spice this up.

The most difficult spot may be the fourth finger in the right hand of the last phrase. That is not a strong finger so I plan to do a little spot practicing there.

As usual, my teaching suggestion is to teach the song first without piano (transpose, because it is in a register too low for children), tap out the rhythm like a drum on the fall board, repeat using the correct hands,  practice playing in the air with the correct fingers, play using fingers on the fall board, and finally try it on the piano. Usually if I do all that, the student is successful and very proud of himself! Of course, older students won’t need all those steps, usually.

A pre-reading version of Bingo

Bingo

I often receive email from teachers who are not used to young beginners or  parents who want to try out my pre-reading music,  so I am posting a suggested teaching plan for this fun folk song. Experienced teachers do not need to read on!

1. Before you begin, teach the song if you discover your student doesn’t know it. Have fun, and maybe play some instruments or march around the room.  

2. With both hands, drum out the rhythm on the fall board, singing along. At this point, chanting or singing the song in rhythm takes the place of counting.

3. Using the correct right and left hand, tap the rhythm on the fall board. Each hand has a different colored highlight to help students who get mixed up. 

4. I am going to assume your student knows piano finger numbers. But if he does not have experience with skipping fingers, you will need to work on that before you proceed. A good piano method book for young children is invaluable. Also, I have posted some pre-reading solos  easier than Bingo that I use as supplemental music.

5. If this is the first time he has used skipping fingers, practice 3 to 1 and 4 to 2 on the fall board. Circle the places on the music where these are found.

6. Play the song in the air, using correct fingers. Try it on the fall board. If he ”gets it”, he’s ready to play. Let him find his position.

7. Always count off. Like most folk songs, this one has a pick up beat, which you don’t need to explain at this point. It helps the rhythm if you count off 7 beats at the beginning:  “1 2 3 4, now let’s play….”.  Point to the notes as he plays so he will learn to read and not look at his hands. This is where all that preparation helps.

8. Make sure he drops into the keys using fingertips and keeps his wrist fairly level. Drop with the forearm. Avoid excessive lifting of each finger up and down in isolation to the rest of the hand. That will lead to some hard to fix problems. 

If you are not sure what I mean, watch the following videos.

Dennis Alexander This video shows the student tapping the rhythm on the fall board and playing with a relaxed hand.

Nancy Faber This video shows how to drop into the keys. Watch her other videos of beginning lessons for more information.

New Year Game Reminder

New Year Game

Game Pieces

I have over 300 pages of activities, music, and ideas posted, all available at no charge to music teachers around the world. With this much material, it is very time comsuming for a teacher to sort through it all. With this in mind, I am reposting a New Year’s game you can play this month.  This is one of those games that it is easy to forget about until it is too late! 

When I first played this game, it was with a group of beginning students.  This week I plan to make it a fast activity at a private lesson. I plan to put the star game pieces in a bowl and let the student draw a star, name the symbol, and place it on the hat. This is simple and it won’t take very much time at a lesson. With an even younger child or with a new beginner,  you can leave off the identification and let the student match the symbols to help with visual identification.

You can also play it in a group, but notice there is only one game board.  You can go here if you want to read the directions I posted several years ago for playing with a group.  Feel free to make up your own rules and post your ideas as a comment to share with other teachers. 

For durability, laminate the game pieces and game board. You can cut the game pieces into stars, or keep the circle shape. 

 

Ornament Bingo

Ornament Bingo

If you are looking for a simple game for beginners for the holidays, you might be interested in this game.

There are four cards in this PDF.  I suggest laminating them if you want to keep them, because home printer ink will smear. The teacher calls out a letter and the students cover it with a bingo token.  Students can win by covering all of one color or row.  Younger children like to play several short games. Older beginners will want to play “black out” and cover all the ornaments.

If you have a few students in your group who are not beginners, make it more difficult for them. Give them a big staff and let them place a token on the staff note as well as the piano key. I have many big staves on my website you can use. There are always ways to make music games more difficult if you think about it.

I used to have some students who had trouble learning piano keys, no matter what cute little ideas I used at the piano. But once I started playing games like this, they learned the keys very quickly. It is a fact that if something is fun, students learn faster. Maria Montessori showed teachers a long time ago that children learn through play.

You know what’s fun for a Christmas group lesson? Instead of using bingo tokens, use green and red M&M’s.

Fishy Scales Revised

Fishy Scales

Several years ago I posted these cute fish as a motivation for my younger students to learn scales. Another teacher gave me the idea, and it has proved to be lots of fun and very motivating for my elementary students. The graphic above is a make-over of the original, and I think they look better, so I replaced the old graphic on my website.  Also, these new fish have more scales, so all the scales can be written on one fish. 

There are two colors of fish, one for major and one for minor. Some students are working on 5-finger scales, and others are playing full scales. When my pre-school and elementary age students learn a scale, we write the name on one of the scales of the fish. When I have put these all the wall, I am amazed at how much it motivates the students to practice their scales, especially the 5-finger scales!

 I print them on card stock, laminate them, and use a dry erase marker so I can use them over and over. They are attached to the wall with removable clear mounting squares.  You can either cut them out along the black outline of the fish, or do what I do, cut on the dotted line.

I found a set of four inexpensive dry erase markers at Wal-Mart that have built-in magnets as well as erasers. Coincidentally, they stick to my fireplace screen so one is always easily available.

This is a big thank you to Arlene Steffen, the generous teacher who gave me the idea. It has been a big hit in my studio and really motivates students to learn their fishy scales!

A Thanksgiving Pre-reading Piece

Hurray, Thanksgiving Day

There aren’t too many Thanksgiving carols and hymns,  and trying to find a pre-reading one is even harder. With this in mind, I started writing some this summer, but time being in short supply, this is the only one I’ve been able to post.

As I wrote it I thought about all the fun I had when I was a little girl in South Carolina getting together with all my relatives on Thanksgiving on the farm. I had many cousins, and we all played together outside and had a great time.   When I asked one of my beginning students what is the most fun about Thanksgiving, she said it was playing with her cousins, so I guess things have not changed that much after all!

This beginning piece is not in middle C position, so follow the fingering on the tiny keyboard. There is a skip on the first line in the left hand as well as a fourth. That will be a problem, especially the skip,  so practice your “skipping fingers” on the piano cover. I highlighted the left and right hand parts to make it easier for one of my students. I also made an on-the-staff version, and I hope I get it posted before Thanksgiving!

It’s October

It’s October

I wrote this  piece  for a new student because  I wanted something special to play at her second lesson. She was delighted with it.  

If you’ve never seen piano material like this before, this is a pre-reading piece that can be used at the first or second lesson. The student plays on the group of three black keys, moving down toward the bass.  If you need more help, check out some of the newer piano methods at your local music store. I use My First Piano Adventures for pre-school and first grade children,  and Book A of that series contains a lot of pre-reading material.

No wonder students get confused when learning to play the piano. The numbers and words go one way (right), while the left  hand moves down the keys the other way.  In a few weeks it is normal for most students, but others have get confused.  It is something to think about when we try to understand why some children have so much trouble learning to read music. Reading music presents so many challenges for young children! 

If you want some more music for the first lesson when students have not yet learned quarter notes, I have posted a few.  From my website you can download:

What the Robin Said to the Worm,

What the Worm Said to the Robin, 

 Fourth of July, and 

 Canada Day.

In addition, there is a lot of pre-reading music on my website using quarter, half, and whole notes. The ones above use only finger numbers.

Note Swap Race

Cecilly has come up with another fly swatter game called Note Swat Race. She sent me the directions and I set up the picture above using my own cards.

 

Of course you don’t have to use my Fly Flash Cards, but  students like them. The cards pictured above  might have notes too small for beginning students,  so you can use these Large Fly Flash Cards for your younger students. Or just use any flash cards you have on hand. 

 I have a beginning student, and Cecilly has given me an idea to play this game using my Keyboard Fly Flash Cards. When I made these I was very tired of my old fly, so I drew another one. The purple hair was just for fun!

 

Please note that Cecilly only used 5 cards with her student when she played this, so use as many cards as you think are right for your student. You might want to start with 2 or 3 depending on the ability of your student. The great thing about Cecilly’s games is that the teacher can modify them in many ways.

Here are the directions in Cecilly’s own words. Thanks, Cecilly for sending this!

Note Swat Race

 Materials: 2 fly swatters, note flashcards (with notes on the staff) representing whichever notes you want to reinforce, and letter cards (2 per letter) for each note card. Timer if desired.

 Set up: Lay out the note cards in a semi-circle from lowest note to highest note on the floor. Give student the flyswatters (1 for each hand) and have him sit on his knees in the center of the semi-circle facing the middle point. You, the teacher sit opposite student on the outside of the semi-circle with the deck of letter cards (shuffled and face down).

 To Play: At “Go” take the first letter card from the deck and hold it up to show the student. The student then, as quickly as possible, swats the corresponding note. It can be in either clef, but the student can swat the bass clef notes with the LH flyswatter, and the treble with the RH swatter. After each correct swat, immediately show the next card. (I just tossed the letter cards on the floor in front of me once the note was slapped). The idea is to go as fast as possible till all cards have been swatted. Repeat if desired. Add more challenge by limiting the time with a timer.

 Objective: For my student, I wanted her to have to continually return to each note, thinking its name from the letter card. What was interesting is that in the first round, there were several sequences forcing her to go back and forth between the same few notes. She was able to associate the letters and notes more quickly after this sequence. Also, a few letters were repeated back to back, again allowing for immediate reinforcement of the note associations. For my student, we only had 5 notes on the floor, but as new notes are introduced in her book, we’ll repeat the game incorporating the new notes.

Musical Memory Level One

Musical Memory Game Level One

This summer I finished up the theory memory games I started last spring for all the early levels of piano lessons.  These games are just like my Rhythm Memory Game, except they use vocabulary words and musical signs. Since I think memory games are more fun with  colorful backs,  I made the graphic for the back of the cards that you see above. Also, each level has a different color graphic on the back so I can keep the levels sorted correctly. The levels contains the vocabulary and symbols on the Texas State Theory Test. However, I could not fit all the words on level 4 because I only had 8 spaces. 

If this game looks familiar, it is the same game I posted in April, but I have changed the back sides. This time I promise to add the other 3 levels in my next posts. Last spring I was busy with recital plans and dropped the ball on the other levels.

Even if your students don’t take a special theory test, every piano student needs to learn these terms.  What better way to learn them than by playing a memory game? The student turns over two cards, trying to match the symbol with the definition. It is fun to play it with a partner, and the one who collects the most pairs wins. If there is only one student, I am the other player. The student can also play alone if you have the time.  I’ve noticed students who are good at sight reading are also good at this game, so a good memory helps with that skill.

If you would like to see how I set up and store music memory games, check out this post.  I am going to post a grid for this game to make it easier to play, so check back.

Hot Cross Buns – Pre-reading for Left Hand

Hot Cross Buns for Left Hand

When I made up the original Hot Cross Buns for the right hand, I also made one for the left hand and due to popular demand, I am posting the left hand version today.

Put this in their binder with the right hand version and  ask your young students the difference in the two pages. See if they can notice that the stems go down, the buns are on the left side, the finger is blue, and the border is a different color. Learning to notice things on the page will help later on when they have to notice musical symbols and expression marks.

Why do some people like me have so much trouble with their right and left hand?  When someone says use your left hand, to find it quickly I make an “L” with my left hand and thumb. I have students who do that, too.  I’m right handed, but I use my left hand for a lot of things, such as eating and using a computer mouse. I don’t know if that has something to do with it or not.

I’ve seen teachers get impatient with those of us who have this problem and say “left hand, left hand, left hand” louder and louder, as if saying it louder is going to help. Trust me, it doesn’t! The best thing to do is just accept that it has nothing to do with intelligence or musical ability and go on from there. One of my students is a wonderful artist and musician, and yet she always mixes up her hands. She composes and plays by ear, too. I usually just gently touch the hand I want her to use and that works.  

Hot Cross Buns for Pre-reading

 

Hot Cross Buns

I made the notes very large on this, probably because I have been having so much eye trouble that I could barely see the computer screen. Rather than shrink the notes down,  I decided to leave them big for my young beginning students.

How do you like my drawing of the hot cross buns? I hope they are drawn right.  Those of you from the UK or wherever they are common can let me know.  I’m not really an artist but I like to pretend!

Now I have a great new pair of computer glasses and I hope all will be fine for a while. 

Do you think I should post the one I made for the left hand?

Ed: After I posted this, I noticed a mistake in the last 2 measures, and I have corrected them.

Canada Day

Canada Day

There are a lot of Canadian teachers who read this blog, and they are all so nice. They email me with such nice comments,  support the site quite out of proportion to their numbers,   and I am so appreciative.  I have visited Canada and the people are good-hearted and friendly.  I am a big fan of your maple syrup and beautiful summer flower gardens.

I remember back in 1976 when I was in a small town in near the Canadian border watching a Bicentennial parade. The town was so small there was no band, so a high school in Canada sent their tiny marching  band to play in the parade. They had learned a bunch of American tunes to play just for the parade and to honor our Bicentennial. It was so sweet and I’ve always wanted to thank them.

Canada Day is July 1, close to our Fourth of July and it is a holiday like our Fourth of July, with picnics, lots of red and white,  and all kinds of summer fun.  I borrowed the format and some other things from my 4th of July pre-reading piece, but I started from scratch with the flag and the border.  I even made a maple leaf brush in Photoshop to draw the border!   

Change the fingering if you wish. Be sure and set your printer to landscape, and I hope your little students enjoy this! Let me know if I captured the feeling of Canada Day for your youngest beginning student.

What the Worm Said to the Robin

What the Worm Said to the Robin

Last year I posted What the Robin Said to the Worm and this year I am posting What the Worm Said to the Robin. Ok, the worm is a little slow! Better late than never.

I am trying to finish up the summer binder that I plan to give my beginning students.  I want to include some simple pre-reading pieces to play,  since this is all about playing the piano.

How is your pre-school binder coming along? If you don’t have a student to use this with now,  you might want to print it anyway and start a binder for the future.  If you are like me, by the time fall rolls around you will forget where on the web you saw it!

In the poll  I posted last week, pre-reading pieces received the most votes, so in addition to this new piece, I am reposting some that are in  my student’s binder. Below are the the easiest I’ve composed.  My student just loved Right Hand, Left Hand and played it over and over! I am working on some more that I will eventually post,  but  this is a very time consuming job.  Teachers also suggested some note learning printables, and I actually have made one for the summer which I hope to post soon.  It’s not too late to take the poll.

You will find many more pre-reading and easy on-the-staff songs on my website, if you look under the Music menu and take the time to scroll down. They are scattered throughout the Music menu, and some are more difficult than others.

I am working on one like The Fourth of July (posted below) for Canada Day, so all you Canadians can check back in a few days.

If anyone has questions on  how to teach these pre-reading pieces, send me an email and I’ll  post instructions  here on my blog.

Thanks to all of you who have donated to keep my website going!

What the Robin Said to the Worm

Fourth of July

Right Hand,  Left Hand

Drawing Notes for beginners

Drawing Notes

Here is another page to go in the preschool binder I am making. The objective of  this one is for very beginning students to learn to draw the notes they will be using in their first lessons, and be able to read or repeat  the words out loud. They might also be able to notice that the notes engraved in books look different than the notes they draw themselves.

So many times when students copy notes they try to draw the half and whole notes exactly like they look in professionally engraved music, with the thicker lines on the sides.   This slows them down when they are working in theory books and makes it needlessly difficult. I like to draw the notes by hand so they can copy them better, and that’s what I did in this worksheet.

If you are a teacher with a beginning student or a Mom helping your child, you might enjoy printing out the Fish Rhythm Cards and see if they can also learn the names of these notes, although that is not the objective of this worksheet. Use only the flash cards that are in this worksheet before you add them all, unless you are working with an older child.

Children are so different that for some students this will be all they need to learn note value names, while others will struggle all year to remember them. That is why I have a variety of methods and materials!

Colorful Hands

Colorful Hands

Yesterday I wrote about making a binder to send home with material for preschool – 2nd grade beginners. The idea is to give them some things to do over the summer. Be sure to go back and take the poll if you want some specific things for the binder.

I promised I would post things I am going to use in my binders, so here is something you should  put before Colorful Fingers. I am not posting these things in order, so use them however you see fit. However, I do present things to students in a very sequential manner!

Idea for the Summer

 

Colorful Fingers

Maybe you have some young beginning students taking  time off for the summer and you would like to send material home so they won’t forget everything they learned.

Or maybe you have some  new K-2  students signed up to start in the fall and you would like to give the parents something to work on before lessons begin.

Here is an idea. Make a binder for them and put in some easy worksheets they can do at home with their parents.  Get a binder with a see though vinyl front, and slip in a personalized cover.

To get you started, you can download Colorful Fingers, which I have completely redone in primary colors. On my website, there are a lot of other pre-school material you can print out. Check the Preschool Music Resources category on the right of this page. Also, in the next week or so, I am going to post some material from my files that I made several years ago  specifically for beginners. I am not too worried they will learn bad habits over the summer. I am much happier that they are interested in the piano and get in the habit of working with Mom and Dad.

If you would like some imput on material to put in the binder, take this poll.

Keyboard Fly Cards

Keyboard Fly Cards

How about using flash cards to teach brand new students the names of the piano keys? Make the cards a fun game that can be played several ways. That’s what I’m posting today. Jennifer, whose website I recently added to my blog roll  made the suggestion. Since I have been honing my Photoshop skills and had some new techniques to try out, I thought I might as well make something useful. If you’re a Photoshop user, you know that there is more than one way to do things, and there is an endless supply of new things to learn.

 Getting back to the cards, here are some suggestions.

• You can use these to play Swat the Fly like the Fly Flash Cards I made earlier. Place the cards on a table, call out a letter, and the student swats it as quickly as possible.
• You can play hide and seek with the cards, hiding the cards around the room. Tell your student to find the fly holding the “D”, for example. Little students need the cards to be very obvious. Older children like a challenge.
• In a private lesson, have the student sit across the room from the piano.  While you time him with your phone or a timer, he grabs the card, runs to the piano, and plays it. This is a variation on my favorite keyboard game. It’s easy, fast, and it works.
• In a  beginning group class,  pass out the cards and let students run up and play their note on the piano.
• In a group, students sit in a circle and pass the cards while music plays.  When the music stops you call out a letter. The student with that cards runs up and “swats the key” by dropping a braced 3^rd finger into the key.

 I hope some of you will leave a comment here for other ways to use these cards because I know how creative piano teachers are.

 There used to be a time when some of my students had trouble learning the names of the keys. I am happy to say that by using some games and a few worksheets at the beginning lessons, all of my students learn their piano key names quickly now and can identify them with speed. While learning sentences and ideas such as the Back yard where the Cat and Dog Eat and the Front door, where Granny and Auntie live are helpful to introduce the keys, I also needed some way for the student to identify them quickly and not have to count up from C. That is my objective with these games.

 This is a large PDF file with 2 pages. It may take a little while to download. There is one card that is intentionally left blank.  I’m not sure what you can do with it, but maybe you can come up with a game where it is the free card and the student can play any note he wants.

Large Size Fly Flash Cards

Larger Fly Flash Cards

The Fly Flash Cards that I made a few years ago have been a big hit with teachers all over the world. It is exciting to think that children are using my graphics to learn note names in places that I’ve only read about. Recently I pulled out the cards to use with a few of my younger students and it was very obvious that the cards, which I made to be the size of playing cards, were too small for young eyes. That set me to work making some larger ones that I hope will be easier for my preschool and 1st grade students.  If you want the smaller cards I posted previously, go here.

There are several ways to use these cards. Of course the way that is the most fun  is to use a fly swatter and let your students swat the cards as you call out note names. Or the student can call out notes as he swats them. I like to use a timer when the students get really proficient with notes. You can play in a group or with one student. You can also use these as regular flash cards and play any kind of flash card game you can think of.

If I play this with one student at a private lesson, it often works out best  to play this and the end of a lesson when I have an extra few minutes. Sometimes the kids get rambunctious swatting flies and  it can be hard to calm them down enough to go back to the piano and place a piece! 

I bought some plastic fly swatters shaped like guitars at one of our local music stores, Penders Music.  That makes it even more fun. 

I didn’t come up with this idea by myself. There are numerous places on the web where teachers have presented all kinds of flash card games with fly swatters. All I did was make cards with flies on them!

If you’ve never tried swatting cards before, try it out.  Have fun, and if you post pictures on your website, let me know and I’ll try to post a link!

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!