Piano for preschoolers? YES!!!!

One of the most exciting things I get to do is teach preschoolers. For many years, as an early childhood specialist and music teacher, I believed that usually group lessons, as opposed to instrumental instruction, was the way to go for preschoolers.  I integrated piano into my group classes, teaching basic skills, but never really felt that it was a good idea to start teaching individual lessons.

Wunderkeys changed that for me. Not because they were teaching radically differently than I did-but because it actually provided a framework for good, developmentally appropriate music skills instruction within a 1-1 lesson session, using the piano as the primary instrument. The games included in each lesson, the off bench activities, and the fact that math, particularly, was integrated so smoothly and seamlessly sold me on the program.

And can you argue with these cute characters?

My students quickly fell in love with Pointer, Middleton, Thumbelina, Ringo, and Pinkie, and more importantly, developed the skills they needed to succeed on and off the piano.

And I fell in love with Andrea and Trevor, and their amazing characters, games, and activities. I found that the materials worked, not only for my preschoolers, but for my primer beginners, and that many of their piano book club and piano game club  materials were the ticket for my older students as well.

As  I begin this new school year, with a new location, I am looking forward to riding the wunderbus with my new preschoolers, exploring primer piano with Ruby, Sheldon,and the others, and enjoying the Elementary series since my primer students from last year are moving up. And I hope you will enjoy it with me. 

More note of the week-amazing animals

As I mentioned in my last post, I am using note of the week this year. The initial idea came from the awesome Teach Piano Today blog. I am finding lots of amazing resources to use, so I thought I'd share some of them.

I am using the characters from the Alphabetimals website. There is a nice bundle of resources on Teachers Pay Teachers. 

I have printed these cute little guys at the appropriate size to go on my piano keys and on a magnetic staff board, by reducing the size of the visuals and printing on magnetic paper. I have kids who are definitely going to be more interested in "C is for Cobra" vs "C is for Cat", and this lets them pick which animals they like-and gives us a chance to talk about a variety of animals. 

I made coloring pages for each note name, on treble and bass clef, using this adorable-and free-animal ABC clip art from Worksheet Junkie on Teachers Pay Teachers. I also reduced these to make "Trading cards"/Brag tags-this is my primary "incentive".

We are using the Susan Paradis Clothespin cards 
and animal songs. 

I am excited to do this with my kids this fall-and hope that it will really help build those early music reading and keyboard geography skills.

Note of the Week-with Prodigies Playground!

This semester in my piano studio, I am using a note of the week activity. It comes from Teach Piano Today, and works well for my Primer Wunderkeys students and older beginner students, as well as a fun reinforcement for my older ones. We will introduce one "special" note every week that the students will focus in on.

For my preschoolers, who are not reading notes yet, but who I want to expose to notation and build listening and early skills, I have a lifetime subscription to Prodigies Music, and my younger students have individual subscriptions (which are available for $2.50/month for students of lifetime subscribers or teacher level subscribers), which lets them access the videos and materials at home, and they have AMAZING "One note studies" that focus just on one bell. Or, in my case, one piano key. Since Prodigies is awesome at making their graphics available, I have been making some great resources to use with my students. If you want the full sets, they are available on the FB group for Prodigies music teachers.

I made these visuals-one for each note I want to introduce. This semester, that will be the notes in middle C position for left and right hands. I have these printed large as posters to put on my bulletin board or white boards in my studios, and printed 9x/page as trading cards-the student can earn the card by correctly identifying the note in their music, or, for my preschoolers, by playing the correct bell.

To tie into piano, I also made a set with piano keys. For my earliest primer students, who are still working heavily on keyboard geography, finding the notes on the piano and doing the "one note studies" and working through the prodigies lessons really cements those skills, and is a great supplement to our piano method.

Finally, I also made a set of worksheets to work on keyboard geography. These are mostly for my primer students-my preschoolers will use the pages from the prodigies workbooks, and my older students will use other theory activities.

I am also using the animal alphabet songs from Susan Paradis and these adorable clothespin cards 

Scicomm Songs for little pythons-Over in the Meadow-frogs

This is the one that started it all. We created this one, to the tune "Over in the Meadow" fir a Save the Frogs day event where I was going to do some group music activities with the younger children. All the frogs listed are species local to us, and their sounds are an approximation of their actual calls. Their habitat is where you might find them in an actual meadow setting.  North American frogs tend to be a "lay them and leave them" type of hands off parent, so that part isn't terribly authentic, but the rest is. This one is also in two parts

Part 1 
Part 2

Scicomm songs for little pythons-Rattlesnake and copperhead

Venomous snakes are pretty misunderstood. This installment introduces us to a rattlesnake and a copperhead-both of whom just want to be left alone to serve their rodent control jobs.

 

The first is the Rattlesnake's song. The Melody is "Old Joe Clark"-which is one of my favorites to use with kids because it introduces mixolydian mode.  

Full PDF

Copperheads often are quite feared. They actually are very timid animals and generally only bite when stepped on or provoked. For this, we used the melody "Down by the Station"

SciComm songs for Little Pythons-Octopus!

Octopi/Octopodes are incredible animals. They are extremely smart cephalopods, with an amazing range of behaviors. This is a traditional rhyme/fingerplay style, but, of course, since we're talking about octopodes, we're talking groups of 8!

This is in two PDF files because there were more pages than the sheet feeder on my scanner wanted to manage on the thicker art paper.

 

Part 1          Part 2

Scicomm Songs for Little Pythons-Out came a Spider

Spiders are scary, right? No, Spiders are wonderful and amazing. This piggyback song is to the tune "Down came a lady", which is commonly used in Orff and Kodaly classes. We added a few spider species. Have fun!

Full PDF

Scicomm songs for little pythons-Little brown bats

My daughter (My Little Python) collaborated with me last year to create a series of illustrated piggyback songs and rhymes that actually include facts about animals that are normally thought of as scary. On request, I am posting these for other people to use with their students.

First up-Little Brown Bats. This is based on a fingerplay about "Scary Bats". We picked the little brown bat because it is a common species here, and one that is frequently seen. They are a small, mouse eared bat that eats mosquitoes.

Full PDF

Scicomm songs for Piano Pythons-A My Little Python collaboration

I started teaching music lessons again last year, and this year have 13 piano students between two locations. With some help from My Little Python, I have created a few warm up activities that also introduce a few of the creatures that live in my home, and sometimes are visible from my home studio-and a few of the ones who might be visible in your backyards. Enjoy!

The whole set PDF is here