One of my hobby interests for many years has been finances and investing. It’s probably my dad’s fault! He volunteered for many years leading financial Bible studies and counseling people who were stuck and trying to get out of debt and make progress toward financial goals. From a young age he set my siblings and […]
Practice Incentive Brings Unusual Blessings
Drawing inspiration from Proverbs 11:25: “Whoever brings blessing will be enriched,” I included an element in this year’s practice incentive theme where students could opt to leave a “Blessing Card” in the destination they were leaving in order to give the next arriving student an opportunity to earn extra coins. This has been a huge […]
Welcome to… Books Perfect for Piano Camp or Group Class
Have you seen the Welcome to… series of books by Carolyn Sloan? I used this Welcome to the Symphony story a couple years ago as part of our To Russia with Mussorgsky and His Exhibition piano camp, and the students loved it! So when I was looking for a book this year to go along […]
Music Escape Room for Group Class
As I mentioned following our last piano group class, I’ve been trying to figure out game and activity ideas that will work well for a mixture of in person and on-line piano students. I came across a Music Escape Room on Teachers Pay Teachers and decided to give it a try for one of our […]
Recording Piano Practice with Fruits
One unexpected way that I often see my students’ personalities come out is in their assignment books. We have a custom assignment book that correlates with our practice incentive theme each year, and one of the elements is that they always have to record what they practiced and on which days in order to keep […]
Providing Helpful Boundaries for Improvisation
Again drawing on inspiration from my friend Agnieszka Lasko (author of the First Class Piano method!) and her fabulous ideas regarding improvising at the piano, I set out to help one of my students become more comfortable trying his own improvisation. He has a great ear for music and some definite natural talent, but he […]
