Orange Julius Musical Recipe

This is an activity that I have done quite a few times with general music classes.  It would also be fun for a group piano lesson.  Students name notes to decode the Orange Julius Recipe.  After they have it figured out, we simply dump the ingredients into a blender, mix ‘em up, and enjoy.  I [...]

Rhythm Cards in 3 Quarter Time

I have had a couple of requests now to do some rhythm cards in 3 quarter time.  I don’t really feel like folding my laundry, so I thought this was a great time to do them.   Most of the cards only use quarter, half, and dotted half notes, but I threw in a few [...]

Basketball – My Way

This is one of my most popular activities with my piano students – especially my elementary aged boys.  First they pick a card.  Today, we were doing pentascales, so we used the Alphabet Flash Cards.   After a card is drawn, the student runs over to the piano, and playes the pentascale.  We always chant “tonic, [...]

Halloween Games

There has been some great discussion on the Yahoo Piano Teachers list about games for Halloween.  Well, thinking up games is much more fun than completing the homework for the class I need to renew my teaching certificate, so here you are!  The first game is Trick or Treat.  Print off the Pumpkin Rhythm Cards, and place in a [...]

Rhythm Blocks

I have been wanting to make these for years, ever since I read about them in the book “A Galaxy of Games for the Music Class.” (A WONDERFUL resource, by the way!) They are great for showing the relationships between note values, rhythmic dictation, and are just a lot of fun in general. Here are [...]

Fun Game Ideas

Megan, a piano pedagogy master’s student at Wichita State University, shared some fantastic games. I am excited to try these with my students. Review Cube: I made a giant dice by wrapping a styrofoam cube in paper. For each class I teach, I make 6 cards with the concepts we worked on in that class [...]

“Baby, Take a Bow!” Part 2

(To read Part 1, click here) Now, for the second part of our exciting “Baby Take a Bow” group lesson… After practicing our bad vs. good bows, it was time to practice our pieces for the upcoming performance at the local mall. I explained to the students that there are always distractions while we play. [...]

“Baby, Take a Bow!” Part 1

Before our first performance this past October, we had a group lesson to rehearse our pieces, and practice playing for an audience. Sounds like it could be a bit boring, doesn’t it? Not in this performance class – it was a riot, and both the students and I had a great time. Preparation for this [...]

Musical Alphabet Blocks

Have you seen Natalie’s great post about making scale blocks? Well, we must be thinking along a similar wavelength. I love my scale blocks, but wanted to have more to use in group classes. Unfortunately, the budget wouldn’t allow it. Then I thought back to elementary school and those cool 3-D shapes we used to [...]

Lets Have a Spelling Bee!

This is another of Sharon’s great ideas. I used Natalie’s list of words that can be spelled with the musical alphabet at musicmattersblog.com to make these cards. One side is the word spelled on the staff, and the other side is the word written out. All words are spelled in both clefs. The lines of [...]