Adding Variety to Piano Practicing

I've incorporated 2 more piano book series into my kids' daily practicing schedule beyond the 4 Alfred's books that we use (find more details HERE for those).

Don't get me wrong, the Alfred's are GREAT but they just aren't always fun, catchy and/or familiar tunes.  Occasionally the songs are ones that the kids will really enjoy playing on their own, but mostly they are just drills.  Don't get me wrong, I'm totally okay with that as that is their purpose.  So that my kids have something "fun" and "familiar" to play and enjoy on a weekly basis, I've incorporated these extra series of books into their practicing:

The first one is PlayTime...

I've currently purchased the Popular, Classics, Favorites and Kids Songs books.  Find them on Amazon HERE.

And because I want my kids to learn how to play primary songs and hymns we sing at church, I've added these:

Find these on Amazon HERE.  These are the most beginner LDS primary and hymn piano songbooks I can find.  After we complete all of these (there are 3 books in this series, pictured above is the 2nd book), I'll advance the kids to this series:

Find these on Amazon HERE.

To ensure they stay "fun" I have my kids playing in a lower level than what they are working on in Alfred's.  This makes them easy and I'm okay with that.  As they advance in Alfred's, they'll advance with these books, just at the previous level so they will always be a level behind no matter what.  So I wouldn't start implementing these books until you've completed level C (in the prep course or its equivalent in the other courses). 

My kids have also outgrown our Friday Flashcards (details HERE).  So I'm trying to find a program to advance with them that we'd use just on Friday's.  I'm looking into these 2 online tools:

PianoMarvel.com

I LOVE this program!  The only downside is it requires a computer to sit at the piano (lucky for us it requires a digital piano which we have!).  Dragging my big desktop mac computer upstairs and getting it all turned back on and set up on the piano is a hassle.  I wish it had an iPad version...maybe it does and I'm missing something?

The other is HauffmanAcademy.com

I haven't really looked into much this but to me it appears to be an online piano teacher so I feel it would be competing with what we are already learning in Alfred's.  But I love that an iPad will work with it.

Beyond the basics, both tools eventually will require a small monthly fee but because I'm not paying for a piano teacher, that's okay - as long as I feel we are regularly utilizing it.

Hopefully with some variety added into our daily practice regime, my kids will stay enthused about learning the piano!  If there are other piano tools that you use, I'd love to hear!

Christmas Piano Party Invitation!

It's time again for our semi-annual home-school style Piano Party with a Christmas flare!

I decided to host it the week right after winter break - everyone will be back in town, kids back to school and life will have slowed down - definitely the time for a party ;).

Here's a blank template you can use to create your own if you like:

Download the JPEG document HERE.  The font I used is called Naive Inline.  You can find all of my piano related posts HERE to see how I teach my DIY piano lessons with my kids!

*If you are interested in a customized card, please contact me using the form on the right.

Piano Christmas Music

Christmas is quickly approaching so we've pulled out the Christmas piano books to add to our piano practicing!  We've been playing in the Bastian Piano Library Books starting with the primer level and working our way up.  The books include lots of the holiday classics - which makes it really fun for the kids!  You can find most of the levels on Amazon HERE.

I'm planning a Christmas Piano Party but it's with a catch - it will be the week right AFTER the holidays!  Like the first week everyone goes back to school.  Christmas gets to be SO crazy that I thought we'd perform in the first of January instead!  This way we can get more to attend!  More to come on my Christmas piano invitation when the date gets closer.

Flashcard Friday

I ran into a problem about a year into teaching my kids piano.  They were insisting on Free-Day Fridays.  And my response was...you get 2 free days already! They are Saturdays and Sundays so NO WAY...But come Friday afternoons, we all just kind of want to take it easy (mostly me!!) so I found a compromise!

Flashcards!!  And the alliteration was perfect - FLASHCARD FRIDAYS!

I bought ours at the local music shop but you can get them from Amazon HERE.

For every card my child gets right, they get an m&m.  A fun little treat for doing your piano on Fridays :).  My kids don't even mind doing them.  For their level, we don't use all the cards so I only use the ones that they have learned in their lesson books and gradually incorporate more as we learn them.

So on Fridays, we put the music books aside and pull out the flashcards and m&m's.  A way to still have FUN on FRIDAYS while still "practicing!"

If you want to see my other posts on teaching kids piano lessons, find everything HERE and scroll through the posts.

Piano Program

I created these program sheets for our piano program tonight!  They'd be easy to do a literal "cut & paste" to insert your program information or you can insert the document into something that can be edited.

Download them HERE.  Then cut them down the middle before passing them out.

If you want to find out more about how I teach my kids piano at home, you can scroll through all my piano posts HERE.

Piano Party

My twins have finished another level in their piano books so it's time for a piano party (which is an informal recital in case you were wondering!).  Since I teach the boys at home, I decided to host piano parties so they have the opportunity to play in front of others - which, in my opinion, is a valuable skill when it comes to playing the piano!  The goal is to try to do them twice a year - once in the summer, and once at Christmas time.

For the occasion, I created an invitation so our family and friends can attend...

You can download a blank copy of this invitation HERE.

The font I used is called Naive Inline.

If you'd like to see how I teach piano to my kids, you can scroll through all my piano posts HERE. 

*If you are interested in a customized invitation, please contact me using the form on the right.

Piano Lesson Scheduler

I've decided to drop my piano teacher and continue teaching my kids piano by myself.  Crazy?  Maybe, but I know I can do what she does and all for FREE.  I just have to be consistent!!

So I put together a few materials to place in a 3-ring binder to help both my kids and I stay organized!  I treated it all as if I were a formal piano teacher so in the future I could potentially teach other kids who are not my own.

Here's the binder cover so they can write in their name on the front page and slip it in the front cover:

This is to be cut out to go in the spine of the binder:

This is my note to parents (if ever needed):

 The lesson schedule for me to write down the date of our lesson and the pages in each book she should be practicing for that week:

Just a page for me to leave notes as needed:

A practice chart:

Honestly, I'm not a fan of making a child sit for a certain amount of time.  Rather, I like assigning them a specific amount of work, and once it's completed, they can be finished!  My preference is to have the child play each song assigned for that week 5 times.  2 times they should sing the notes they are playing, 2 times they should do the counting, and 1 time silently or do the duet with me if applicable.

Then a reward sticker page as they will be receiving stickers for completing their practicing for the week and when we finish up our lesson (so 2 stickers per week at our lesson):

Find all these documents HERE.

The books I like to start with are:  Alfred's Basic Piano Library, Prep Course for the Young Beginner...

(it's that top row of books that says "Young Beginner Prep Course")

The books in each level that I prefer are the Lesson Book, Technic Book, Solo Book and Theory Book.  There are several other books in each level that I don't buy (Notespeller is one).  Then we just start at Level A and work our way up!  If you notice in Alfred's map above, once we complete Level F in the "Young Beginner" level, we'll move to Level 3 in the "Beginner" until we complete Level 6.  Once that's reached (fingers crossed we get there!), I'll most likely be paying for a piano teacher :).

There is also a downloadable Alfred's Teacher's Guide that I'll be using to help me teach Level A.  The link for that is HERE.

If you want to see my other posts on teaching kids piano lessons, find everything HERE and scroll through.