If you think they would be useful for your studio, you can download them here. There are even some blank cards included so you can write in your own practice ideas. Let us know how your students enjoy them!
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We added 2 Notes and Rests Review slides. This gives us a chance to review the notes and rests with the students before we start the game. We also added a little "home" link on the bottom right of each slide that takes you back to the Review slides, because we've found that after being "tuned out" during the review by students who "already know this", we often have to return to the review after they have not made it to the treasure in time :) Time For Treasure is now 50% off in the Piano Together Etsy Store until 30 November 2021.
Note that these changes are only on the PowerPoint version of the game. (They not yet on the Google Slides/KeyNotes versions).
I love the idea, though I didn't really want to use Hangman, and then I saw someone suggested building a snowman instead of a hangman. Today I put together a PowerPoint activity that we will be using this month to get everyone ready for their Christmas Piano Postcards. It worked so well in today's lessons that we'll be sharing it with the Piano-Together Club members later this month! Last week, at the end of a lesson, we had a little time left. I decided to use the Staff Pets Power Point activity to do a little quiz on the lines and spaces on the staff. I randomly selected line/space numbers and the students had to identify pet on that line/in that space. What I thought would be a quick fun exercise turned out to be a big challenge to one of the students in the group. She has been playing Middle C position staff notes for the past year. We had covered the line and space numbers several times early on, but it seems she hadn't really grasped it. She confused the lines with the spaces and became very frustrated and unhappy - especially as the other students were answering the questions correctly.
This was yet another reminder for me to review, review, review and then review some more. So I added extra slides to the PowerPoint for introducing the lines/spaces. I also created additional quiz slides to keep it interesting, as this is another activity that students will be doing every week until they have completed the primer level. We'll be sending this out to Piano-Together-Club members in December. If you want one earlier, join the Piano-Together-Club, and we'll send it to you later this week! Some of our students are really struggling with the landmark notes, and often mix up treble G with bass F. I put together a PowerPoint to help them. We are testing it out over the next couple weeks to see if it helps. This short PowerPoint, has 3 sections: - a brief introduction to Landmark notes - lots of quiz slides on identifying bass F and treble G - several 2-bar phrases for them to play using bass F, treble G and middle C. Finger number animations help the students to place their hands at the correct place on the keyboard.
We have a lot of Primer and Level 1 students, so I opened up Finale and put together some more simple versions of Christmas songs. Feel free to download them and use them with your students if you like! This summer, we had a lot of fun with the PianOlympics piano practice incentive. The students worked hard in teams to gain as many practice points as possible, and the winners were super excited to receive their prizes in the mail. We are still online so the prizes were mailed out, but the students were delighted to receive a package addressed to themselves. The only downside of the PianOlympics incentive, was the fact that a few of the members of the winning teams, hadn't actually contributed very much to the team. So this month, we started the Fantastic-30 practice challenge. Students are being challenged to complete at least 30 pieces of music before the end of the school year. A piece is counted as 'complete' when the student has played it to recital level at 2 separate lessons. We ran this challenge a few years ago when we were in-person, but as we are still online, we are making the most of the visual effects of PowerPoint. At the start of each lesson, we share the Fantastic-30 PowerPoint on the screen so the students can see how they are doing compared to other students at the same level. They are really motivated to keep up with each other right now. We're including pictures of the PowerPoint slides in our monthly newsletter, so that parents can see how their child is doing and encourage them in their practice.
We are also encouraging the students to select 2 or 3 pieces they really like, and to memorize them. Our recitals are pre-recorded online, so not much memorizing has been happening for a while, and we want to get back into that. Prizes go to the first 3 students to reach 15 pieces, and then later to the first 3 students to reach 30. We will also have a prize at the end of the year, for the student who learned the most pieces of music. We are expecting big progress this year! Yay! This summer, we are running a super piano practice incentive for our students. After learning about the copyright on the word "Olympics", I settled for the title - "The Piano Games." I doubt the students will mind - they are more focused on the prizes than the title! We are still online and won't be returning to in-person lessons for the rest of 2021, so our "score charts" are all on PowerPoint. (Even when we return to in-person, we will still use PowerPoint for games and charts - it is so easy to amend things and put together a quick game to reinforce concepts! PowerPoint rocks!) First of all, a big "Thank You" to the fantastic music teachers on Facebook whose suggestions helped me to put this program together. So we will be having team events and solo events. The students are split into 4 teams. We tried to make it even by having the same number of students at the same level in each team. We've also made sure that the students who practice a lot are not all in the same team, and the students who practice a lot less are also in different teams. The team events are:
When a student scores a point, we'll "color" one of the blocks for their team. The visual effect will be a big motivator. We did a similar thing with charts on the wall a few years back when we were in-person, and as soon as the students entered the room, they checked the charts to see how their team was doing :) Solo events are:
So we will begin in July, and I'm pretty sure we'll amend some of the events before then - (we may incorporate some worksheet events or some coloring events), but this is what we've come up with so far. We will still be online through the summer so the PowerPoint charts will be instrumental in keeping the students motivated.
You are welcome to download the PowerPoint and to amend it to fit your studio. Create the events, determine which will be team events and which will be individual events, rename the teams if you like, and add your own students names. Even if you're doing in-person lessons, your students will enjoy seeing the scores each week. Let us know if you need any help tailoring it to your studio! A few years ago, we put together a little booklet that we used to reinforce steps and skips for our young students. It was very popular, and your young students may find it useful. It was kind of long (lots of exercises for the students to practice, practice, practice!), so we've cut it down to remove some of the repetition.
Click on the images below to download and share with your students.
In the past we have given prizes for those who practice 40 days or more (and sound like it!), but we won't be doing that this year. Instead, we will ask them to send in videos of completed pieces - just to keep them playing instead of doing mad practice the week before their lessons restart.
If you think it will be useful for your studio, click on the images and download the PDF. Print it double-sided, flipping on the short edge. If you would like the editable Publisher Document so you can personalize it for your students/studio, let us know and we will email it to you. |
Julia & DianaTwo sisters on two different continents, working together, creating resources that keep our students motivated and loving piano! Categories
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