My Piano Camp is scheduled for next week, so I’ve been busy these last couple of days trying to assimilate all my ideas and devise the accompanying lesson plans. For more specifics on how I do this, you can read the post, How to Plan a Group Class. This year, I’m only holding one Piano Camp, which is nice because then it only requires one set of lesson plans! It’s a pretty diverse age and skill-level group, so I’ve had to brainstorm extra hard to think of objectives and activities that will be relevant and exciting for all of the students. I still need to finalize my outline and finish designing the student workbooks this weekend, but here are the objectives that I’ve outlined for the group:
- Have fun!
- Develop keyboard topography skills
- Learn about the history and design of the piano
- Learn an ensemble piece (assign each student a duet or trio)
- Build improvisation skills
- Learn about some composers and their spiritual lives
My tendency is to try to focus on too many things, so I’m trying to be more realistic and narrow in my emphasis. Each of the activities are designed to reinforce these objectives and hopefully provide a cohesive flow throughout the course of the week. It should be a lot of fun and a great learning experience for all of us!
Are any of you holding piano camps this summer?
martha says
hi natalie…Regarding Piano Camp Lesson plans…how would you market this camp? Age range? beginners? etc etc thx
natalie says
Hi Martha!
Here’s a link to a step-by-step post with how I schedule and plan summer piano camps: https://musicmattersblog.com/2010/06/28/monday-mailbag-piano-camp-logistics/
I usually only include current piano students in our summer piano camps, so I send a survey out to my studio families sometime during the spring to find out who is interested and what their availability is. Occasionally, I’ll include other families who have expressed an interest, but that’s not my primary audience. Hope that helps!
natalie says
Here’s one other post with some additional logistical information: https://musicmattersblog.com/2009/05/18/monday-mailbag-more-about-planning-piano-camps/