Hi everyone, I am participating in a "Career Day" to present my career as a piano teacher to children grades kindergarten through 4th grade. I would appreciate it if anyone out there could share ideas about activities that would get the kids actively involved in my presentation. I'm thinking about some rhythm games, songs by rote... but I would love some more suggestions. Some of the kids will have had no experience with the piano, and some will have taken lessons. I will work with a small group of one age at a time and have about 5-10 minutes to get them interested in the piano. Any ideas? Thanks so much.

-- Elizabeth (megsolon@aol.com), January 01, 2002

Answers

Elizabeth,

What children want to do on piano is play songs they know and like. They really don't care what the method is. I have a lot of songs in numbers that will get children to playing their favorite songs immediately! You may email me at flo@pianimals.com. You can look at the concept of the large numbers on the website: www.pianimals.com Older children will be able to play "Twinkle, Twinkle," "Ode to Joy," "Yankee Doodle," or "America" in a short time. Younger children will have to work up to those because of their dexterity development. I will be glad to send you (or anyone) whatever songs you want by attachment. You could print them out, perhaps back and front and give each child a copy to take home so that they can keep on playing them. That is what we did at a recent convention where we offered a "free piano lesson."

Flo Arnold

-- Flo Arnold (flo@pianimals.com), January 02, 2002.