This summer I’m trying something completely new – a pre-piano camp for 3-5 year-olds. Wow, it has been a blast! Even though I only had two students enroll in this session, I decided to go ahead with it because I knew it would help me tweak my plans and make sure they were age-appropriate. It’s been such a hit with these two, though, and there were quite a few other families that were interested but couldn’t do the summer session that I’m considering offering the class again in the fall.
As soon as we finish our last week, I’m planning to publish the lesson plans for those who might be interested, but in the meantime, I’ll give you a sneak peek into a couple of our favorite activities:
By the third week we had learned C, D, and E so I gave each of the girls three little game pieces and let them put them on any group of C-D-E they could find on the piano. Once they had correctly placed the pieces, they could improvise and play around on those three keys. Then we would find another group of C-D-E and do the same thing. It was a great way to provide some parameters, but then let them explore and be creative as well.
On week four we learned F and B as well, so it was time for a fun matching game! Each column of flashcards contained the five keys learned thus far. The girls took turns flipping over one of the yellow cards and then seeing if they could find a match by flipping over one of the orange cards. As they flipped over each card, they had to say the name of the key that was marked with the “X.” If it was a match, they got to keep it; if not, they had to turn them back over and it was the next one’s turn. It proved to be quite the challenge, but they eventually found all the matches!
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