Halloween Piano Challenges

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. 

DIY Washboard/Guiro Kids Craft

Suggested age: Preschool/Kindergarten

YOU WILL NEED:
Cardstock Paper
Tacky Glue
Popsicle Stick
Crayons/Markers (Optional)

1.  Fold one piece of cardstock accordion style. (The smaller the folds, the better)

2. Put glue on the points of one side of that folded paper.

3. Line it up and glue it down to the another flat piece of cardstock.

4. Children may decorate their instrument with crayon or marker if you wish.

The washboard can be played by rubbing the popsicle stick over the bumps.

*You could also drill a very tiny hole in the end of the popsicle stick, and use a hole punch to punch a hole in the paper on the guiro and attach both with a string to each other so the parts do not get separated.


Music Lesson: 
-You can incorporate this into a lesson about Appalachian Mountain music and folk music

-You can also work this into a lesson on different guiro-type instruments... washboards, regular wooden guiros, wooden frog guiros, metal guiros, etc.

Musical Parcheesi

The game cards are a mix of flashcards of cards with types of notes. If they draw a card with a staff, they figure out what letter it is and move to that letter on the gameboard. If they were to draw the other type of card and it is a half note, they move 2 spaces forward, etc.

I also made little cards on blue paper that are "blue bonus cards" with miscellaneous piano and music trivia questions.  If they land on a blue space on the gameboard, they get a chance at answering a bonus question. If they get it right, they can move 3 extra spaces forward.
A few examples of the bonus questions:

• General music trivia
• What is a composer?
• How many spaces are on a staff?
• Fill in the blanks:  Every  __________  Boy ____________  _____________  *or substitute with whatever phrase you teach students to remember treble clef lines
• Fill in the blanks:  __________  Cows __________  ___________  *or substitute with whatever phrase you teach students to remember bass clef spaces
• What is tempo?
• What are dynamics?
• Name 2 famous composers.
• What is a composer?
• What is a staff?

• Piano specific trivia
• What were white keys on a piano made of a long time ago before we started using plastic?
• How many keys does a piano have?
• What does the damper pedal (on the right) do on a piano?

Halloween Challenge

Happy Halloween! 

Students of mine completed their 5 Halloween Piano Challenges in order to earn their piece of candy.  Here were the challenges. 

1. Play a scale with right and left hand.

-This one is open ended so that the teacher can choose exactly what they need to complete according to their skill level. Young beginners may be asked to play only a pentascale. Advanced students may be asked to play an A Major scale using two octaves.

2. Name the notes in 30 seconds or less. 

-I set a timer on my phone and the students try to get through the stack of flashcards naming the notes correctly before the timer beeps.  I usually do about 10 flashcards for most of my students (bass F through treble G plus a bass C). I will add a few more for advanced students or take some out if a beginner student has not learned all the notes yet. 

-If a student has just started lessons and does not know notes on the staff yet, I point to a key on the piano and they tell me the letter of that key.

3. Perform a song you played over a month ago with less than 3 mistakes.

4. Define 5 musical terms. 

-I give them 7 index cards with words/symbols so that there are 2 "freebies" they can skip if they don't know.  

       -Beginners set:  treble clef, bass clef, repeat sign, double bar line, quarter note, half note, duet

       -Intermediate set:  forte, piano, step, skip, octave, dynamics, tie

       -Advanced set: dynamics, tempo, 8va, chord, staccato, 4/4,  ritardando

5. Name the music alphabet for 2 octaves using only skips in less than 10 seconds. 

-I set 10 seconds on the timer on my phone, and students start on middle C, and then name the letters of the keys going in skips (C, E, G, B, D, F, A, C).  They don't need to play the keys, but they can if they want to. 

Once the student completes all 5 Halloween challenges, they've earned their piece of candy!

Why Music Flashcards Are Important-- A Letter to Parents

     As teachers, we want our students to learn how to read sheet music easily and fluently.  Some students catch on quickly, but others struggle with note reading.  I often feel like I spend way too much time in a lesson just figuring out the notes, and I know we could be focusing on so much more if only the student would practice notes at home.  Likewise, the parent would get SO much more for their money if the student would practice notes at home.

      For most students, I send home flashcards along with the letter below.  My flashcards are customized to include clues from the "Freddie the Frog" book series as well as clues like "Every Good Boy Does Fine."

     I created this letter with an introduction to help parents understand WHY reading notes easily and fluently is important.   Feel free to use the letter below for your studio and change it to whatever fits your needs!

Important New Piano Material Information

What makes people enjoy reading books as a hobby? In elementary school, you learned your letters and what sounds they make. At first, you had to piece together this information by sounding out words letter by letter. The more you practiced this by reading simple books, the more you started to memorize the letters, sounds, and combinations that formed words. Years later, you don't have to consciously think about the individual letters that form words at all-- you just sit down and read quickly and efficiently. If reading continued to be a process of deciphering each letter and sounding out each word, it would be a very tedious job to read hundreds of pages and no adults would ever take up reading as a hobby!

Reading music is exactly the same. I think the thing that makes music FUN and makes playing piano an enjoyable hobby for me is that I know the notes on the staff just as well as English letters in a book. I can sit down with new music that I've never seen before and quickly figure out how to play it without translating each note into a letter and then that letter onto the keyboard. Without developing this skill of fluent note reading, playing the piano is likely to become too tedious and the student will want to give up playing. Learning and memorization come to humans through repetition. Some students are able to memorize the notes just through the repetition of songs, but most students need a little more practice. Just as your child might have learned their addition and subtraction facts through flashcards, I feel that this is also one of the most effective way to reinforce music notes on the staff.

When you start off learning addition and subtraction facts, it's common to use your fingers to help you out. There's no harm in this at first-- it gives you a way to figure out the solution-- then eventually you need your fingers less and less because you start to memorize them. The same applies to music notes-- students have learned numerous ways to help figure out note names (such as phrases like “Every Good Boy Does Fine,” the spaces spelling the word FACE, and even reading the “Freddie the Frog” books), but in the end we want to have them memorized and not need to use the “tricks” to figure out each note.

Please note the flashcards that have been sent home with your child. I have designed flashcards that incorporate the different “tricks” on the answer side to use at first if the student is still getting stuck on particular notes. The end goal is for the student to name the correct letter of the note immediately upon seeing it. I've found that during lessons with many students we are sometimes spending more time than what's necessary figuring out individual notes instead of getting to the other important lesson topics. Working with your child a few times a week on memorizing the notes will provide a better value for your money for each lesson.

I am asking only $3 for each set of flashcards to help cover materials/supplies. The set includes all notes on the staff. However, beginners will not need to learn all of these right away, so I made a list that corresponds with the Faber books to tell you which flashcards to pull out and use according to where they are in their lesson book.

Thanks for your dedication to helping your child, and hopefully this will make piano even more enjoyable than it already is for your child!

Sincerely,

Courtney

October Piano Lesson Props

I found these mini candy corn erasers in the dollar section at Target. (By the way, have you tried the Cartwheel app when you're shopping at Target??  I got these for $0.90 instead of $1 because of the 10% off coupon in the Cartwheel app!!!) 

I left some blank.  With these, I play games like a "following directions" game that includes intervals and direction and note names. 

For example, I would say, "Start with a candy corn on a D. Put the next one a skip higher. Put the next one on an A. Then go a 5th higher. Then a step lower. Then a 4th higher. Then a skip higher. End with a G."

With a handful of other erasers, I used a black permanent marker to write a number on each one.  

With these, I play a game where the student marks off the song on the piano with the order of the notes that fall in the song.  For example, below are the first 10 notes of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" on the piano.  One student described this game as, "Someone who doesn't know how to play piano could follow this like instructions on which key to press... like a connect the dots page but on piano!"

Can you guess which song these 10 notes belong to?

If you guessed Beethoven's 9th Symphony, you'd be correct!

One more handful of erasers I saved to write letters from the music alphabet on each one.  These are great for students that just started lessons that are practicing labeling the letters of the keys!

Target often has great seasonal erasers! You could do a variety of eraser props to help those students that are visual learners and benefit from seeing keys marked off on the piano!

The Tempo Truck Challenge

I paid $3.20 for this fun addition to my studio game collection!   I bought 2 sets of transportation erasers and 1 cute storage bag (actually a makeup bag from the beauty isle)  at the Dollar Tree all for $1 each. 

I took a black permanent marker and wrote various tempos on the back of each eraser ranging from 60-200.  

To challenge students with a particular piece, they can draw 3 tempo trucks out of the bag randomly and then attempt to play the piece at those 3 different tempos!