Since this was our last week of lessons (next week we have our Year-End Evaluations) I let each of the students choose what they wanted to do for the lesson. Several (not surprisingly!) chose games. They love to skim the 5 for Fun! Games and Activities for the Private Piano Lesson book for ideas!
One of my students chose an older version of Music Bingo that has collected dust in my studio closet, and it ended up being a fun and effective way to review music terms and symbols! We each managed three cards and then took turns drawing a card with a music term or symbol, then telling the other one what it was and what it meant.
And one of my students, inspired by Jon Schmidt’s crazy, comical performance of “Dumb Song” donned his own wig for this recording:
Several students (notably, the ones who started out in the amazing Piano Safari method!) wanted to play the Mystery Song Game and can play nearly every piece in their books by memory! Another student and I also pulled out a Pattern Play book and created some cool improvisations. We all had such a fun time that it almost made me want to let the students choose what they want to do at every lesson. Almost. 😉
[…] Having a week where students get to choose what they do is a great idea whether it’s the last lesson of the school year or a week where they didn’t have a lot of time to practice and a change of pace is needed for one lesson. […]