I like to give students a little extra Halloween challenge to complete to earn their candy the week of Halloween. I usually pick about 3 challenges from the list below depending on how much time we have in the lesson. Feel free to alter the challenges in any way that fits the student you are working with---- these are just some ideas/general suggestions! I try to adjust the difficulty for each student so it gives them a little challenge or a little review without being so hard that it's discouraging. Try to encourage success in these little games to give the student a confidence boost!
Earn Your Candy Halloween Challenges
1. Play a scale with RH and LH!
Teacher's choice of scale--any difficulty according to the level of the student
2. Name the notes in 30 seconds or less!
Pick out a group of flashcards and have the student name all notes correctly before the time's up. You can add more flashcards for more advanced students/less for beginners. I usually do about 9 cards: the middle C area from bass clef F to treble G.
3. Perform a song you played over a month ago with less than 3 mistakes!
4. Define 5 musical terms!
On some index cards, I write some terms such as dynamics, tempo, forte, piano, octave, skip, step, chord, rit., 8va, staccato.
I usually divide them in different difficulty levels and have more than 5 to choose from, but the student just needs to pick 5 that they know to tell me what they mean.
5. Name the music alphabet for 2 octaves using only skips in less than 10 seconds!
Example: C E G B D F A C. They can play the keys as they say the letters out loud if that helps. I usually demonstrate it first so they understand, then give them one practice round without the timer, then give them 10 seconds to do it.
(For some students, it could be better to challenge them with saying the music alphabet backwards.)
CLICK HERE FOR A PRINTABLE SHEET OF THESE CHALLENGES. I print this on orange paper.
