Teaching How to Read Notes

My piano students could use some review and practice reading notes. I think the pseudonyms work pretty well and are good to know, but there are other techniques to figuring out the notes. So I would like them to be able to recite the phrases for each clef, but I don't expect them to do that while they are playing necessarily. Skills related to note-reading: 

Understanding of How the Staffs Relate to the Piano. 

• Following each note on the staff one-by-one, you are also going up the notes on the piano one-by-one.
• Any note can be written on either staff by adding the appropriate amount of "imaginary lines" underneath the original 5 lines.

Shortcut:

• Pseudonyms- FACE, Every Good Boy Does Fine, All Cows Eat Grass, Good Boys Do Fine Always.

A problem I have found teaching the pseudonyms is that it is hard to remember which clef the sayings are attached to. Perhaps I could think of a clever way to stick it in their memory.

FACE- our face is on top of our bodies and rhymes with space, therefore the correct placement is on the Treble Clef's spaces. 

Every Good Boy Does Fine- "Every" starts with the last letter of FACE, so they belong together.

All Cows Eat Grass- Grass is on the ground, therefore it belongs on the lower staff.

Good Boys Do Fine Always- Grass is Good.  (And Good starts with the same letter as Grass, so those two phrases belong together.)

Joyschool

Our Joyschool:

 A mother and I have started a Joyschool for our children. We had attempted to get together a bigger group of kids, but we have my child and a neighbor boy participating, which makes it a very small group. We decided we would like to focus on learning letters/reading along with other life themes. Just as importantly, we want to give our children an opportunity to interact with other kids their age and be exposed to a school-type setting.

Learning about "A" and Fiction/Non-fiction

Today I taught my first Joyschool lesson.  I wrote up a simple and sort of sloppy lesson plan, and I am sure glad I remembered to include an "Engage". This really helped get us started when my own son was causing problems. 

The boys were playing with toys, and I asked them to clean up. When my son refused, I mentioned that the person who I saw cleaning up the most would be able to pick the first object out of my bag. That got everyone moving. Both he and the other boy got to pick at the same time because they were both cleaning up really well. I was surprised how much they enjoyed coloring the page I printed off for them, and I was happy with the worksheet, that it allowed them to color inside block letters as well as tracing the A's. I think it gives good exposure to the structure of the different letters.

Today's theme was Literacy, so we read some books about Alligators (since Alligator starts with "A"), and talked about Fiction/Non-fiction. We made up our own fiction and non-fiction stories together. I was surprised at how well this went, that the boys grasped the procedure and went along with it. 

Further Reflection:

I wondered if I should have focused on teaching procedures more, rather than spending all the time on a lesson, but I think it went well. I have not sat down and figured out any specific rules or specific procedures. 

Keeping Younger Children Happy

One problem/distraction we had came from my youngest son, who was screaming because he wanted to bring his strawberries into the living room. After trying to calm him down and give him other options, I took him upstairs to cry and let him come back down when he was done crying. He did. So it all worked out. He did participate in each stage of the lesson, and that kept him engaged aside from his own personal issues of the day. I will always prepare enough materials for him to participate as well. He is a little young for complete participation in some of the activities we have, so perhaps I will need to take this into consideration and provide similar, but separate, materials to participate with. I should take care of personal business before Joyschool starts. For example, I think he was fussy from teething. Perhaps I should have given him medicine before class started.

Transitioning into the Classroom

My children are probably always going to be playing with toys while we wait for the other child to show up. So when he gets here, it is natural for him to join in. Perhaps next time I will let them play for a few more minutes instead of expecting them to clean up right away. I will set a timer for five minutes, and then we will clean up. I will always want to have an engage ready to get them excited about moving to the next activity.

Place for Instruction

Our lessons will vary, but one problem we had was that everyone was crowding me and trying to get the bag first. There needs to be a form of order. After they are done cleaning up, I will have them sit on the couch, or on the floor, depending on what we are doing, so that I can explain the procedures for our engage/lesson. It would probably be best just to keep one place so they can go there without me needing to remind them.

Raising Hands?

I don't think I am going to enforce raising hands because I feel like that will cause more problems enforcing than it will solve when we only have two children. I want them to be able to interact and be a part of their learning.

Me as a Teacher

What I've got:
As I have been thinking about how to help my students succeed, I have come to a conclusion: that if I want my students to be polished and accomplished, I need to be that way myself. I can play most if not all the hymns at church with little problem. I have accompanied singers and choirs at church as well. Individually at home I enjoy singing along to songs that I can sight read and play. Others I have been working on for a while. Some of my skills on the piano have transferred to the organ, which requires some new techniques that come in handy while playing the piano as well.

With that said, I also have room to grow, (and lots of it). While teaching one of my students, we came across a glissando. I wondered if there was an official way to approach playing one, as I had never been taught that. On YouTube, we found a demonstration, which greatly improved the way we were playing the glissando. I would like to find some songs that use glissando and learn other techniques as well. I have only played so high as a 16th note or a triply (if that is even what they are called). I would like to learn and perfect some other piano techniques that are not as common in every day accompaniment.  Occasionally, I have to ask my mother (who also taught piano lessons) what something is called or for help counting out a difficult rhythm. I would like to be at the point my mother is at and to continue to grow in my piano expertise.

What I would like to know:
Today I attempted to play something that looked like a triply, but instead of three notes, there were 7 that you were supposed to fit into one count. I would have appreciated an example of what that sounds like. What is it called when you have a note with three lines on top? a 32nd note? And what is the counting strategy teachers are using for those? I can only remember ever playing a 16th note. I want to learn how to play faster. I hear pianists that play really fast. Are they doing glissando some of that time? Or what tricks do they know to accomplishing that?


Is there a use for learning to play classical music, even if it doesn't appeal to you? Is there something inherent in classical music that other more modern pieces don't have? Some old piano music seems dull and void of feeling. I have not played much classical music, but I also don't particularly enjoy listening to classical piano music. Maybe I have not been exposed to the right pieces. That is another aspect of teaching that I should improve: my knowledge of classics.

How I plan to get there:

My husband has been wanting to learn to play the piano, and he has a system that will teach him how to play. I am thinking that some of it will be simple if it is starting from the beginning, but it also might offer some useful instruction. It might give me ideas for teaching my students as well as for filling in the blanks in my piano knowledge.

I would like to work up a challenging piece to play at the next piano recital and learn the techniques I don't know through YouTube and Google.

Starting Point

Every "spicy" classroom needs planning, organization, structure, consistency, and a safe environment for the spice to have effect. In order to provide that, a teacher should think about some stuff. My professional teaching environment consists of once a week piano teaching at my mother's house. We do lessons there because she is the only one in the family with an actual piano, and my students also happen to be my nieces. This location also provides a fun place for the children to play/work while their siblings complete their piano lessons. My two children under the age of 3 are there as well, being watched by their aunt, cousins, and their grandparents. It works out fairly well, aside from the occasional interruption, which we try to avoid by having candy afterwards if they don't interrupt.

State of Students
What are the conditions my students are coming to my lesson? - tired. During the school year it is right after school. They have not had much "me" time during the day. Their brains are tired. During summer, it is still at the end of the day, although they have not spent so much time receiving instruction during the day. During the school year they seem to have a lot less time to practice the piano. During the summer they have been practicing their songs sometimes 100 times per week as opposed to the usual 10 times requirement a week during the school year. Their mother has put this limit on them for them to be able to have their piano lesson. It is also the number that allows them to get a piece of candy for practicing.

Something I should find out from my students is: "How are you feeling today?" I need to find out if they need time to talk, move their bodies, eat something (their mother provides that each week), close their eyes, etc.... Sometimes it is more than they can take to practice their pieces over and over, receive correction, and spend lots of time practicing the same song because they haven't been able to practice much.

Some solutions to this might be: allowing them to pick their songs-they already do that. Considering their time allotment during the school year when choosing how challenging their song will be.
In November, one of my students plans on teaching my son a short lesson each week. I thought this might be a good idea since he is going to be at an age he could start learning, and she is at a level that she would know enough to teach him. It will give her further opportunity to grow and test her knowledge, just as I am continuing to do as a teacher.

Talking
I figure it is okay during my lesson to talk for a bit to get to know my students and to meet their personal needs at the moment. Sometimes they just need a short break, and I am okay with indulging that every once in a while to keep their brain working at peak performance. Sometimes it does go a little too far though, especially with one student in particular. Talking ends up getting us distracted.

Rules
Are my rules working? My rules are: stay at your seat, listen to the teacher, and don't distract other students. My students have become so good at these that I hardly ever think of them. The biggest struggle is "listen to the teacher", I would say. Perhaps I am saying too much? Maybe I could ask the students their opinions more. More of the lesson should be a discussion that requires both the teacher to talk, and the student to talk. Sometimes it takes a long time for students to act on what I say. Perhaps it is not clear? Be intentional on what I ask, and if they do not respond, ask them if they understand what they are to do.

Concepts:
My oldest student does really well site reading. My other two could use some review and practice on reading notes. One thing that L has been working on is hand positioning. That has been a real challenge for her to keep track of where she is on the piano and how to get to each note. She has made progress, and I think our new focus on the scales will help her see how we are not merely changing hand positions into strict formations on the piano. Our hands move across the piano in a strategic manner to reach the notes that we are to play. A2 has been working on counting and has seemed to be grasping it fairly well. We still need to continue to practice it. A1 has been learning complex counting patterns. Perhaps we could include more dynamics into her lessons.