Let’s Play Practice Bingo!

Last month, I was mulling over different areas that I want to focus on in lessons for the remainder of the school year. I concluded: practice consistency, practice efficiency, technical skills, ear, rhythm and sight reading, and finally - theory and keyboard harmony.

The thing is, how to make what students normally find “boring” fun? The answer, turn it into a game! Bingo, to be precise.

Febrary Challenge: Practice Bingo

Feburary’s praactice challenge focused on practice consistency. Some of the challenges were pretty easy (“Logged into My Music Staff student portal”), while others were harder (:"Practiced for 60 minutes without distractions””.

Homemade cake pops were on the line. They were a huge hit. So much so that they are now items in Maestro’s Market that students can “order”.

Flexing with Cake pops.

This month, they are working on practice efficiency. Some of the practice drills they are working through are part of Maestro’s Music Tricks, the game-ified practice aid I developed in conjunction with my students a few years ago.

Check out the Practice Bingo cards, along with Maestro’s Music Tricks in the Studio’s Ko-Fi Shop. Check the store at the beginning of each month from now till June for a new Practice Bingo card.

Piano Teacher's Resource Kit

I picked up the Piano Teacher's Resource Kit a few months ago. For years, I've been using  some of Alfred Music's reproducible sheets, but needed some new teaching materials. When my music students go away on vacation, I usually give them "airplane homework" to do while they are away. I am always on the look out for music crossword puzzles, word searches, music sudoku and composer reading and comprehension. The Piano Teacher's Resource Kit is handy for these situations (along for those who need remedial work in a particular area, such as rhythm).

It contains 88 pages of reproducible worksheets, cheat sheets and music games. There are five levels of difficulty.

For us music teachers, there is a handy answer key in the back. I love how the pages are perforated so we can take them out and photocopy them in batches. However, that creates another challenge - how to store theme without getting them mixed up, but that's a challenge for another day.

The Keynote Writer has been a handy cheat sheet for my students struggling with keyboard geography.

It's available at your local music store as well as Sheet Music Plus (below):

look inside

Piano Teacher's Resource Kit Reproducible Worksheets, Games, Puzzles, and More!. Educational Piano Library. Teacher Resource. Softcover. 88 pages. Published by Hal Leonard (HL.296802).

and Amazon: Piano Teacher's Resource Kit.

Online Music Resources Spotlight: MusicTechTeacher.com

This little gem has been around for several years. Long enough to amass a wide selection of music games, music quizzes and help pages. The Music Worksheets page gives students extra practice on basic rudiments and composition. There are also print mazes that feature a famous composer and/or performer.

The Links page provides links to post secondary music schools, music software and music educators. MusicTechTeacher.com is a very useful online resources for music students and music teachers alike!

(c) 2012 by Musespeak(TM), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Online Music Resources Spotlight: Making Music Fun

Making Music Fun is a friendly site with music games, music worksheets, free sheet music and music resources. These are geared toward beginner to early intermediate-level students.

There is a nice selection of note-naming worksheets as well as interval worksheets. They are visually appealing to young students. There are also composer word searches.

Making Music Fun is well laid out. Visit the Music Library and learn all about a composer. There are composer biographies, worksheets, lesson plans and sheet music. You can also access this information in the Print It section.

There is also an arcade, which contains two music theory games ("Music Distress" and "Eek Shark!"). All worksheets are available for free.

(c) 2012 by Musespeak(TM), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Playing Fraction Pies - Help with Rhythm

Hooray! I've been looking for an online game that my students can play to practice their rhythm/fraction recognition. Here's what I found.

David provides a concise breakdown of the pie pieces and then has a game at the bottom of his page.

Happy playing!

(c) 2009 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.