Erasers in Piano Class
What's new in the studio this week?
Erasers.
Originally I bought these because *clears throat* when it came to theory that had to be erased, certain students would insist on using only the eraser at the end of the pencil. It didn't matter if I placed the big eraser right in front of them. Soon my pencils had no eraser left, and they were still trying to erase with the (non-existent) eraser on the end!
So I went to the dollar store, got a big package of these erasers, re-capped all my pencils, and still had lots of erasers left.
Then one day, I was playing one of TPT's games with two of my students. These games invariably use coins, and I had run out. So I made a quick scan of the studio, trying to find something that was plentiful and would work, and my eyes landed on . . . the erasers.
So ever since then, erasers have been used
for TPT's games,
reinforcing keyboard awareness/note reading,
teaching inverted chords,
and reviewing sharps and flats with a game I found here.
The only thing I have not been able to use erasers for is rhythm. But I did find something that works far more effectively than anything I've tried so far. It's a step up on the traditional clapping and counting. Each different rhythmic value gets a different action to go with it. So, for instance, a student who's playing a long note followed by two short ones may stomp for the long note and clap for the shorter notes. There are endless variations on this, so it's creative and probably much more interesting for the student (especially pre-teen students!) than plain clapping.
We continue to play Christmas music and explore RCM's Celebration series. My attempts to start introducing them to music history are going slowly. Next week, perhaps, we'll have more success.
And since Halloween candy goes on sale today, next week students might find sweet treats replacing the erasers. :)
Erasers.
Originally I bought these because *clears throat* when it came to theory that had to be erased, certain students would insist on using only the eraser at the end of the pencil. It didn't matter if I placed the big eraser right in front of them. Soon my pencils had no eraser left, and they were still trying to erase with the (non-existent) eraser on the end!
So I went to the dollar store, got a big package of these erasers, re-capped all my pencils, and still had lots of erasers left.
Then one day, I was playing one of TPT's games with two of my students. These games invariably use coins, and I had run out. So I made a quick scan of the studio, trying to find something that was plentiful and would work, and my eyes landed on . . . the erasers.
So ever since then, erasers have been used
for TPT's games,
reinforcing keyboard awareness/note reading,
teaching inverted chords,
and reviewing sharps and flats with a game I found here.
The only thing I have not been able to use erasers for is rhythm. But I did find something that works far more effectively than anything I've tried so far. It's a step up on the traditional clapping and counting. Each different rhythmic value gets a different action to go with it. So, for instance, a student who's playing a long note followed by two short ones may stomp for the long note and clap for the shorter notes. There are endless variations on this, so it's creative and probably much more interesting for the student (especially pre-teen students!) than plain clapping.
We continue to play Christmas music and explore RCM's Celebration series. My attempts to start introducing them to music history are going slowly. Next week, perhaps, we'll have more success.
And since Halloween candy goes on sale today, next week students might find sweet treats replacing the erasers. :)
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