Category: Free Stuff

Free Halloween Resource Round-Up!

9/25/2018

Looking for a few Halloween activities to do with your students this October? Today I am sharing links to the Halloween resources available on my website!

Click on the pictures below to download free music, a composition activity, and a rhythm game. Or, scroll down to find a link to search for all of the Halloween-appropriate solos and duets in my music catalog!

Free primer piece

Free early elementary piece with optional teacher duet

Free elementary piece

Free composition activity

Free rhythm activity

For more Halloween fun, click HERE to search my catalog! Select the level you are looking for, then select "Halloween" under "Search by genre." You will be able to listen to each piece, as well as click on a link to see and/or purchase the music.

Do you have any fun activities planned for your students for Halloween this year? Please leave a comment below--I'd love to hear from you!

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A Group Class Lesson Plan: George Gershwin and Jazz

8/25/2018

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If you are planning a group class to kick off the new school year, today's topic is lots of fun and features a composer born in September: George Gershwin!

I used this lesson plan with my first fall group class this past weekend and it was enjoyed by all. It was a great way to introduce my students to a few famous Gershwin tunes and to add a few jazz terms to their musical vocabulary. Here is what we did:

To start the class, we played an icebreaker game of "name that tune." I played excerpts from two famous Gershwin tunes: "I Got Rhythm" and "Summertime." (I played from my Gershwin songbook, but you can find these songs on YouTube too!) Most of my students recognized these songs, especially once they heard the lyrics.

I asked students what style they thought these songs were, which led us to learning a bit about the history of jazz, as well as a few jazz vocabulary words: "swing," "blue note" (or "bent note"), and "improv." A great, kid-friendly information page on the history of jazz can be found HERE.

For our listening activity, I played an excerpt from Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" as an example of jazz "concert" music. The Classics for Kids website has a great five-minute presentation on "Rhapsody in Blue" HERE. Or, you can use excerpts from this video of Leonard Bernstein playing the piano part while conducting the New York Philharmonic--a feat both me and my students found very impressive! (Be sure to point out the "blue notes" in the opening clarinet glissando and the trumpet solo.)

Next, we learned a few facts about George Gershwin. HERE is a website with a great, kid-friendly bio of Gershwin--or use the facts below!

A few facts about George Gershwin:

1. He was born on Sept. 26, 1898 in Brooklyn, NY. His parents were Russian immigrants.

2. George showed a great aptitude for music. Before he took piano lessons, he taught himself to play many songs on the piano by watching the keys on a player piano at a friend's house.

3. Though he was classically trained, Gershwin loved jazz and popular music and started working as a songwriter in Tin Pan Alley (a nickname for the street in New York City where many music publishers had offices) when he was only 15 years old. His brother Ira was the lyricist for many of his songs.

4. He wrote his famous "Rhapsody in Blue" in just three weeks, for a concert showcasing jazz and orchestra music.

5. He died on July 11, 1937, just a few days after being diagnosed with brain cancer. He was only 38 years old.

Next, each student had a chance to perform a few pieces for the class. I had asked a couple of my more advanced students to be prepared to play a jazz piece from their repertoire, which gave us an opportunity to talk about the jazzy elements we heard in the music.

Finally, to end the class we did an improv activity using 12 bar blues and the pentatonic scale. Since I had a wide range of levels in this class, ranging from less than a month of lessons to more than five years, I created an activity that I could customize for each student so that everyone could participate.

First, I had each student (even my more advanced students) create a melody on the black keys while I played the duet part. Once everyone was comfortable doing that, I had my most advanced student play the duet part while my less advanced students improvised their melodies, giving each student an opportunity to play duets with the others. We even turned it into a trio by having one student play the root of each chord low on the piano in whole notes in addition to the other two parts.

Click HERE if you would like to download this improv activity to try with your students!

I think this month's class was a hit! What do you think? Will you have your students learn a bit about Gershwin or do any improvising this September? I'd love to hear your comments!

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Student Assignment Binders

7/26/2018

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One of my goals over summer break was to create assignment binders for my students to use this coming school year. In the past, I have always asked my students to bring spiral notebooks to lessons for me to write assignments in; however, I sometimes find myself scrambling to write things down at the end of our lessons. I wanted a more organized way to make sure I was covering everything in our lessons and providing clear practice goals for the week. As a bonus, 3-ring binders are great for storing the extra worksheets and composition projects I have been creating for my students!

To make this a cost-effective project, I shopped around and found a good deal on 1 inch 3-ring binders at Target--the ones I am using were 89 cents each, and have a plastic cover (so I can insert a cover page) and pockets on the inside. Since I am using our laser printer at home to print the black-and-white assignment sheets very inexpensively, all I needed to purchase were the binders and paper, which ended up costing about $1 per student. Not bad (and tax-deductible)!

Next, I gathered the materials I wanted to include for the beginning of the school year. My binders will include (pictured above):

Binder cover. I created a simple black-and-white cover that my students will be able to customize by adding their name and coloring the piano. My sticker enthusiasts might want to decorate this page using the stickers they earn in their piano lessons, too.
Assignment sheets. I found a great template HERE on the 4d Piano Teaching blog, which the creator, Spring Seals, made available as a Word document so it can be customized. Thank you, Spring!
Practice Tips and Tricks page. I created a short practice guide, featuring the most common tips I remind my students of during their lessons. I thought it might be a helpful reminder for my students as they practice at home during the week. You can download the practice tips and tricks page HERE.
Repertoire and Wish List page. I have blogged about this page a few times now. It has been extremely helpful for my students to write down a list of their favorite pieces and the goals they have for the coming year on this page. It is a great first-lesson-of-the-school-year activity to do together, as well. You can download the Repertoire and Wish List page HERE.

I intend to add more pages to the binder as the year progresses--blank staff paper and a calendar of events are the big ones that I anticipate adding first. This was a pretty simple project, but I am excited to give these binders to my students when they return for lessons--I think they will be a big help this year!

What do you think? Do you create assignment binders for your students? Any other tips you have for keeping students organized and on-task?

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