And the jungle came to the studio!

Back-to-piano was anything but mild. In fact, it was a little on the wild side.

   Readers, welcome to the jungle.



   (Fellow music teachers, helpful hint: If you're planning to throw a jungle theme, don't go shopping for plastic animals brand-new. Head to Value Village or Goodwill or some other thrift store. I got two bags of second-hand animals for two dollars less than that brand-new cheetah cost me. Bugs and snakes and everything.) (I even found one bag that had a plastic Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon in it. But I didn't get that bag. I was tempted, though. 😝)


   Students helped the cheetah from the table to its home on top of the piano by correctly identifying the note/symbol on each flashcard along the path for first week reviews.

   Animals helped young ones discover musical artistry in my homemade 'Hands and Sounds' game. Students rolled a dice to get a specific set of directions regarding hand technique. Then they played a note following those directions. Finally, they matched the sound they had created with a specific jungle animal.

   Jungle animals also made good assistants in keyboard awareness and note reading as well. 


   And, in this game, students moved the animal of their choice forward if they could identify the interval I played for them correctly.

   (Don't worry. All animals were sanitized before and after lessons. The rubber snake didn't like the hydrogen peroxide treatment, though. He's gone from all green to mostly green with white splotches.)

   What about online lessons?

   Baloo and Mogli from Disney's The Jungle Book joined us for some rhythm practice. We practiced clapping along with the video, then matching specific rhythmic patterns with the correct lyrics (using a worksheet I designed).

   And the Hands and Sounds game translated well to online, using Google Docs and jungle-themed clip art!

   
   I also began using online games like musictheory.net. And dice games. Much to my surprise, dice games work really, really well for online lessons and are actually fun! 

   From my perspective, I think the students enjoyed this year's Jungle Theme much more than last year's Castles theme. You might say it was a roaring success! 

   (P.S. Have you seen the music video my friend, my brother, and I put together last month? If not, click the link and check it out!) 

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