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Resources for Group & Solo Piano Lessons : Online & In-Person

RainBow Keys - AN INTERACTIVE PowerPoint Game

9/29/2020

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PowerPoint games work great on Zoom, and they allow us to have Music Theory Game Time in our lessons as we used to when we ran in-person lessons.

​Rainbow Keys is a PowerPoint Sight Reading game for students just learning to read staff notes.  It has been a big hit - especially when we play Boys v Girls. 
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Students are in a race to build a rainbow by sight reading small groups of notes. Behind each cloud is a set of notes to be named and played correctly. The students earn a Rainbow Key each time they name and play the notes correctly. The first student to earn all 6 keys and a rainbow is the winner.

PowerPoint slides are predictable, so to create some randomness, I don't click on the clouds in numerical order.  Clouds on the top line are for treble clef and clouds on the bottom line give bass clef notes

Rainbow Keys is available on our Etsy Store
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Games for online Lessons

4/14/2020

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For a lot of our younger  students, games are their favorite part of the piano lesson, so when the lockdown occurred last month and we converted to a totally online studio, we worked hard on adapting our games to our online group classes. 
We are still working out online versions of our board games, but we easily adapted several card games, and added some new games too. For example:
PASS OR PLAY
Select a section of music for students to sight read or tap the rhythm. Student A can choose to “play” for 2 points, or “pass” it to Student B.  If Student B does it correctly, he scores 3 points. If he fails to do it correctly, Student A scores 1 point.
 
NOTHING TO TELL
A score study game. Good to play at the start of a new piece.
Ask the students to take turns telling you something about the music until they have pointed out everything there is to say about it. The last person to tell you something about the music is the winner.

INTERVAL HUNT
Give the student a starting note. Call out a series of 4 or 5 intervals. The student should tell you which key you will end on by following those intervals. For example:
  • Start on C
  • Go up a third
  • Go down a second
  • Go up 3 steps
  • Skip down
Where do you end up? The answer is E
Students score a point for each one they answer correctly.

Print the list of 10 games here with instructions for adapting the games to groups or one-to-one lessons.
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Switch For Seven - An Icebreaker!

4/1/2019

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We play a lot of card games and board games in my studio. I found a lot of them online (thanks to the wonderful community of music teachers out there), but a few of them, I created myself. 

Most of the games we play are for the purpose of reviewing music information I have already taught - playing a game repeatedly is more effective than listening to me say the same thing repeatedly :)
Switch For Seven was created for a different purpose - for my students to just have fun! I want my studio to be fun and enjoyable as well as amazing musically :), and if the students get to know each other and build friendships, then not only do they hold each other accountable to practice (even if it is by roasting each other mercilessly when they make mistakes in the group pieces), but as a whole, they grow musically. 
This is a game of speed - players are dealt 7 cards each, and after a 7 second count-down, they have to swap cards with each other as quickly as they can in order to gain a set of 7 identical cards. Players score additional points if they can give the meaning of the symbol on the cards they have collected
In a word, this game is fun, fun, fun! Ok, that's 3 words, but you know what I mean :)
Find Switch For Seven in our Etsy Store.

(Tip: If you "favorite" an item in our Etsy Store, you automatically get a 20% of coupon!)
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Six Square Oranges

3/11/2019

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Review, review, review. That's how I keep things in my students' minds. 

​Six Square Oranges is a review game for elementary school beginners. We play it almost every week for the first year. I've learned that just because I've told them or showed them something 10 times, doesn't mean they will remember. But if remembering means they will win a game, they are much more likely to do so!
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This Bingo-styled game reminds students of the names and meanings of the following music symbols:
  • Line/Space notes
  • Treble/Bass Clefs
  • Piano/Forte Dynamics
  • ​​Keyboard Keys C, D, E, F and G​
  • ​​Middle C
  • Step Up/Step Down/ Repeated Note
  • ​Quarter Rest​​
  • Whole, Dotted Half, Half and Quarter Notes
My kiddos love it and almost every lesson I hear "Are we playing Six Square Oranges today?" even before they have played anything on the piano!

​Now I am using it as a practice incentive - "Next week we will only play Six Square Oranges if you can all play 'Frogs on Logs' correctly." 
It takes about 3 minutes to play, so it is a fantastic way to start or end a group lesson, though we usually play it 2 or 3 times.

Six Square Oranges is available from my Etsy store, but is free this month to everyone who signs up for the PianoTogether newsletter! Get your free copy before the end of March!
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    Julia & Diana

    Two sisters on two different continents, working together, creating resources that keep our students motivated and loving piano!


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Two sisters on two continents - working together, teaching together and creating super resources for group piano lessons! Yay!
These are resources we used in our in-person group piano lessons. Now we have created online-versions of everything to keep our students loving their lessons.
Photos from wuestenigel (CC BY 2.0), Phil Roeder, gitsul., torbakhopper, University of the Fraser Valley, 401(K) 2013, wuestenigel
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