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.