Whew! What a whirlwind this spring has been. Our end of year studio recital and cookout has come and gone, and we are only one week away from a week of Piano Expeditions piano camps! With this week off I finished tweaking the practice incentive theme we just wrapped up – Destination: GPS – so […]
Practice Incentives
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 […]
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 […]
Musical Form & Analysis for Beginning Piano Students
Having been a long-time piano student who graduated from high school with no idea how to tell what key I was playing in, I’ve been determined as a piano teacher to make sure that my students understand music theory. Not in a disconnected fill-in-the-answer-in-the-theory-book way, but in a way that ignites greater understanding and appreciation […]
Practice Incentives…for the Dads??
“My dad said I should start with my map pin here because that would give me the most central location for getting to the other destinations.” ~student after the September Surprise “My dad had a question…can you go around the world to the east and come back in on the west?” ~student at the first […]
September Surprise! 2023 Highlights
Whew! What a whirlwind it is when the school year starts back up and lessons are in full swing! As usual, we launched our new year of lessons with a September Surprise: We began the evening with the big announcement of this year’s practice incentive theme! This is one of my favorite things to plan […]
