After teaching for more than 15 years, I have come to understand that to be a good teacher, you have to be able to adapt and change your teaching habits and techniques as students and circumstances change and grow. As of late, most of my students consist of younger elementary school children, which I have thoroughly enjoyed. While teaching the younger students is enjoyable and fun, it requires a different approach than teaching older children and adults. One thing I have realized is that younger children's attention spans are not that long. Each child is different, ten minutes is a great amount of time for an activity. It is important to remember while young children may be enjoying what we do in lessons, they cannot stay on the same task for long. So I have come up with a few things that help keep them engaged while learning new concepts and reviewing things they have already learned.
Using different books:
While I use specific curriculums for the most part, I have discovered that supplementing with other books (even if it is only in lessons) helps to change things up. One of the books I like to use as a supplement is Klav-Ear for kids. This curriculum offers a completely different approach to learning the piano when compared to other curriculums I use such as Alfred's Premiere Piano Course or Little Mozarts. This method helps kids learn concepts with hands on experience and pictures they can understand rather than teaching concepts through verbal instructions and traditional music notation. Another important feature is the full exploration of the keyboard, rather than specific hand positions. I use this book with a CD in class, where they play with the CD. The songs are very interesting and fun for the children. For instance in one song they are the siren of a fire truck as it comes closer and then drives away. This is a great way to teach how to play Forte (loud) and Piano (soft) as well as Crescendo (getting louder) and Decrescendo (getting softer). I call this a game instead of an exercise to give it a different feel than just playing from another book.
Using Props
Using things other than the piano and the child's books helps to change things up as well. For instance, I use the Little Mozarts characters Beethoven Bear and Mozart Mouse for almost all my students in the beginning, regardless of the curriculum they are in. Mozart Mouse sits at the top of the Piano and Beethoven Bear sits at the bottom of the Piano to help the child visualize which side has higher sounds (the mouse) and which side has lower sounds (the bear).
Additionally, I use blocks with letters on them to drill the students on the Music Alphabet, white keys on the piano, and even reading the staves. In one activity, I place the blocks in a bag and have them draw them out one at a time, as they pull out each letter, they place that block on the piano where that key is, and then find all the keys with that same name.
Finally, I use is a small draw erase board. The kids typically love to use the board and markers. We use this to review theory concepts such as reading and rhythm we have learned in our books. I can do something as simple as asking them to draw a picture of something loud then soft, or printing the staff on the board and having them fill in notes.
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