Category: Lesson Planning

New Website Feature: Search My Catalog!

8/5/2018

I am excited to share a new search feature on my website that I hope will be very helpful for teachers and students! Visitors to my website can now search my entire catalog of over 200 piano solos and duets by choosing from a variety of search criteria.

Use one or more of the filters to find exactly what you are looking for:

Looking for music that tells a story, or a piece that is pattern based? Use the "My student is motivated by..." filter. (Hover over the name of each category to read more about it.)
Looking for a piece at a specific level? Search by level, from elementary through advanced.
Looking for a piece for a specific holiday, like Halloween or Christmas? Or a specific style, such as jazz or rock? Search by genre.

Once you have selected your filters, your results will appear:

You can listen to the full recording of each piece returned in your search. If you like what you hear, click on the "Buy" button to be taken to where you can buy the sheet music online.

You can also type search terms or specific titles into the search bar (located on the right above the results table) to find what you are looking for quickly.

Click HERE or on the pictures above to be taken to my catalog search page. Let me know what you think!

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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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July Professional Development Challenge!

6/28/2018

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I received several kind comments about my summer review challenge calendars--thank you! (If you missed my blog post about these calendars, you can find it HERE).

One teacher, Roni, commented that the tasks looked so fun she wanted to do them herself. So I thought, why not create a challenge calendar for teachers? We spend so much time finding fun summer music activities for our students--why not take some time to do a few professional development activities for ourselves?

So, today I am sharing a July Professional Development Challenge--one task for each day in July that teachers can use to help review repertoire, brush up on technique, plan for the upcoming school year, and more! Get your free copy HERE, or by clicking on the picture below.

I will be doing a weekly wrap-up each Saturday of how my challenges for the week went. I would love to hear from you, if you would like to join in!

What do you think? Do you have professional development activities planned for the summer?

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New Website Feature: Search My Catalog!

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