How can it be October already?! As always, we launched a new year in the studio with our beloved September Surprise! It’s an opportunity for the students to play any piece that they want (thus surprising me with what they’ve worked on over the summer) and it’s when I announce our new practice incentive theme for the year (thus surprising them with a fun plan for tracking and reaching musical goals throughout the year).
Since our theme this year is The PUZZLEMAKER, I thought it would be fun to incorporate an Escape Room game into the evening’s activities. This Music Escape Room #1 from Band Directors Talk Shop was perfect for the occasion!
I grouped everyone according to families so that the students and parents could work together decoding the worksheets, filling in music theory symbol names, and following the clues to make their escape!
This was a great activity for all ages and levels of musical ability because each person could contribute in different ways.
At the end, everyone who completed the challenges and arrived at the correct answer managed to escape (which in this case meant that they got to go to the reception and enjoy the scrumptious snacks!).
We all know the most exciting part of any studio event for some of the students is the food, right? Tasty snacks are always a necessity!
As a part of our practice incentive theme this year, the students got to decorate their own containers that they’ll be using to collect their puzzle pieces each week. They loved this! And it was fun to see the themes of each of their containers when they were done. (You can see the display of all the puzzle piece containers along the studio wall in the first picture.) We’re now about a month into lessons with The PUZZLEMAKER theme and it is going really well! I specifically designed it to be simple to keep track of while providing a framework to help students master various patterns of rhythm, pitch, and movement in music. Their assignment books also include pages specifically designed for our monthly group classes, which has been a wonderful time-saver for me in terms of planning. I’m excited to already see the students utilizing the patterns they are learning to explore music in new ways. Hope all of you are off to a wonderful fall of music teaching in your studios as well!
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