Do you ever get BORED teaching? If you are, think about how your students must feel! Kidding aside, it’s so fun to go to conventions and trade shows and see all of the latest teacher tools and gadgets. Here is a roundup of my latest and favorite products.
Music Note Wipe off Boards/Placemats: These look great, i’m getting enough for each child in my beginner group classes to have their own! Edit: Not as durable as I hoped but still great! Be sure to have Black Dry Erase Markers for these because my green and blue dry erase markers were a bit difficult to see on the darker colored keys.
Easily Draw the Lines of the Staff: No more uneven lines for this teacher! I’ll be using with my HUGE dry erase board!
Alfred’s NEW Music Note Teacher. This is the most impressive product I’ve seen in years! My students LOVE playing with it (and learning-I’m so sneaky!) This is great to use in group lessons so they can check their own answers. Update: Mine slid under my piano where it will live forever (after I spent too long trying to extract it) so I bought a NEW one!
And Alfred’s NEW Key Signature Teacher-another product that will amaze you!
It even comes in different colors! Much easier not to loose the colorful ones!
And these cute and tiny violin flashcards!
My students LOVE playing this simple game. It takes about 3-5 minutes and they’ll be talking about it all week. This is an off the bench or away from the music stand activity.
I take a few tiny shopping carts the size of my hand for older kids from a “shopkins” toy (my daughter had received this game for Christmas from Target) or the large toy shopping cart from our playroom for preschool students to use.
Before the lesson (while the student is washing their hands) I hide some flashcards and then students get a shopping list from me at the beginning of their lesson and try to find the correct cards to put in their basket.
For example with a 3 year piano old student, they can find all the 2 black key flashcards in a set of piano cards and for a Violin Student who is younger I have them find all the open string “family” notes on the Violin.
If you don’t have a shopping cart, any basket works as well but kids really love it when I incorporate TOYS! With older students you can have them go shopping for certain Key signatures or harder chords. I always have a little reward and I give my students “change” of a few penny sized chocolate coins.
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If you need MORE great ideas for your studio,please check out the free sample of my 60 Day Makeover: Music Teacher Edition book on Amazon!