Teacher in Progress

Wow! Already we're into the second month of lessons. Everyone having fun yet? ;)

   Some of you may have noticed . . . there's a lot of brown in my studio. Brown piano. Brown desk. Brown walls. Brown floor. Now, brown may be a trendy colour, but it's not exactly my choice of colour. Especially not for a room where children come in and out a lot. 

   So, inspired by various teacher friends who actively decorate their classrooms, I decided it was time to start introducint colour into the studio. 

   Like it? It's a start. Now I'm going to keep an eye out for happy, colourful things I can place on top of the piano. Because somehow I had the feeling putting sticky things on my piano was not a good idea! 

   Anyways. You probably were more interested in what's happening in lessons rather than studio decor. 

   A lot of time has been spent actually playing the piano. This is no doubt largely due to my own teacher's influence, as every week I come home with new ideas for problem-solving from him. Last year I spent a lot of time doing theory-enforcing games and activities. They haven't gone completely out the window, as you can see below.
   And printable activities like this one from TPT are great for teaching theory to students who don't have a theory book. Still, theory is only one side of the coin. I'm very happy to be introducing students to RCM repertoire this year, along with continuing to use method books and special "extras" like hymn arrangements.

   Speaking of extras, I'm finally putting into practice my plan for introducing music history! This week I gave a TPT Composer Trading Card to one of my students. She wanted to learn about Chopin. When she brings me the filled-in card, she gets to learn a piece (arranged for her level) by Chopin!
   I'm hoping to get all my students to do this, but one at a time as I have a limited number of books I can loan out.

   I plan on dedicating next week's lessons to solfege, as my teacher and I discussed this last week its importance in music. What's solfege, you ask? Stay tuned and you'll find out. :) 

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