Christmas Circle of Fifths

Here is a fun activity that has students filling out the circle of fifths with ornaments around a wreath.  The student chooses an ornament and places it in the correct circle on the wreath.  You can have the ornaments all out on the table for the students to put them in order or the student can pick one at a time (a little harder).   I glued my ornaments to bottle tops for a more sturdy playing piece.

Christmas Circle of 5ths

I put my bottle cap ornaments in a peanut jar covered in Christmas wrapping paper.

Students picked one ornament and placed it on the wreath.

They continued until they completed the circle of fifths with note names.

 Then they added the key signatures on top.

Then they advanced to minor key signatures.

Christmas Songs

There's A Little Elf Sitting On My Nose

There's a little elf sitting on my nose

There's a little elf sitting on my nose

He is sitting on my nose, then off away he goes

There's a little elf sitting on my nose

There's a little elf sitting on my knee

There's a little elf sitting on my knee

He is sitting on my knee, then off away he flees

There's a little elf sitting on my knee

There's a little elf sitting on my head

There's a little elf sitting on my head

He is sitting on my head, then off he goes to bed

There's a little elf sitting on my head

Idea: Clap or pat twice after each verse.  Use a high "elf voice" to sing the song.

Christmas Cheer Sung to "Mary Had A Little Lamb"

Clap your hands with Christmas Cheer

Christmas Cheer, Christmas Cheer

Clap your hands with Christmas Cheer

Very best time of the year.

Alternatives: Spin around, Bend your knees, Reach up high, Dance around, Pat your knees, March in place, Jump around

Can Eight Brown Reindeer Pull Santa's Sleigh?

Eight brown reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh

One fell down and ran away

The elf called Santa and Santa said

"Can Seven brown reindeer pull Santa's sleigh"

Continue counting until one is left

One brown reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh

He fell down and ran away

The elf called Santa and Santa said

"Call Rudolph!"

Idea: Have eight students line up and each time you take a reindeer away, one student sits down.

Also you could have pictures of eight reindeer or foam reindeers and take one away each time.

Eight Brown Reindeer

Christmas time is here Sung to: "Farmer in the Dell"

Christmas time is near.
Christmas time is near.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Christmas time is near.

It’s time to trim the tree.
It’s time to trim the tree.
Merry Christmas everyone.
It’s time to trim the tree.

It’s time to wrap the gifts.
It’s time to wrap the gifts.
Merry Christmas Everyone.
It’s time to wrap the gifts.

It’s time to hang the stocking.
It’s time to hang the stocking.
Merry Christmas everyone.
It’s time to hang the stocking.

Santa will soon be here.
Santa will soon be here.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Santa will soon be here. 

Christmas Train with New Easy Level!

Can you help Santa get the presents to the right house?  Match the notes to the correct train car.  You should be able to print out the train and put it together in one long row.

Game idea: Take turns placing the presents on the train.  Whoever gets the last card on the train wins that pile.  Whoever has the most piles wins!  I made extra presents so you can have at least five of each note.  You can also make extra copies to have the number of presents you need.

Christmas Train

Practice Trick

Students get bored quickly when they have to repeat a passage over and over.  Making a game out of repeating patterns helps students become engaged and motivated to repeat with purpose.

One thing I like to do is have a object that climbs up the piano as the student repeats the pattern correctly. The item then climbs down the piano for more repeats.

The item can be a eraser, a little toy or anything fun!  I like to use things that relate to the season or song we are studying.  So the "Easter Bunny" may hop up the piano, or for the "The Bear"by Rebikoff you could have a bear climb the piano.  

Some kids love certain sports team, so I could use a little token that represents the sport team.  It could be a magnet, or something you printed out and adhered it to a block or piece of foam.  Imagine the mascot moving up the piano.  It starts on the bench, then on the keys, then moves up to the music rack, then finally is on the the top of the piano.  If more repeats are needed, the item can move down again.  It really helps make practice fun!  See pictures below for how I used this to pracitce for our Christmas Recital.

Jenga

     Recently I used the game Jenga for a group lesson.  It is a really fun game that the kids love to play.  I got the idea from a post on the Piano Club page.  I bought a Jenga off brand game ($4.99) and decided to go with the colored blocks.  My Jenga game has yellow, blue and red blocks.  I took a sharpie and used all the yellow blocks for rhythms.  I wrote an easy rhythm on one side and a more challenging rhythm on the other side.  the red blocks were use for notes on one side and chords on the other.  The blue blocks were used for symbols.  The blue blocks made it hard to see the symbol, but not impossible.

Another idea for levels is to buy the plain wooden blocks and use different colored sharpies for each level.  This could still work for multi level play. For example, if the player who is at level one picks a level three than the closet player to them that is level three must complete the task.

The directions are below.

Jenga Directions

Alphabet Cards

Here are some alphabet cards to print out on card stock.  You can print them out on some different colored card stock and have multiple sets.  I use my cards for many, many games.  I included some blank ones in case you want to add sharps or flats.

Alphabet Cards Google Docs
Alphabet Cards

Group Lesson Thanksgiving Style

We had a great time at group lessons this past week.  I decided to review the games we had played recently which included Jenga, Uno, Tough Turkey and Eight is Enough in a Station format.  I have included the directions to these games below.  I go over the rules of the game and at each station there are directions for the students if they need help.  I plan on posting more about Jenga later so stay tuned.

I had a multi level group, so I had to modify some of the games to accommodate the different levels.  I have some students in the "My First Piano Adventure" by Faber and Faber so they haven't learned any notes on the staff so here are the modification I made.

For Eight is Enough, I had them make stacks of Alphabet Cards.
For Uno, we matched the bass and treble clefs using line and space notes.

We had a lot of fun as you can see in the pictures below.

Some other fun Thanksgiving games you can play are

Pilgrim, Pilgrim, Turkey:  Played just like "Duck, Duck, Goose"  I have my students keep a rhythm pattern going as the player goes around the circle saying "Pilgrim, Pilgrim, Turkey"  Whoever is touched on the head when the player says "Turkey" chases that player around the circle trying to tag them.  If the player gets back to his/her seat in before being tagged, they win.

Turkey Rhythm: You can use Thanksgiving words to say simple rhythm cards.


Pass the Turkey: If you have a stuffed turkey or a foam turkey (found at most craft stores) you can play pass the turkey.  Students pass the turkey saying the alphabet, intervals and or chords.  You pick a alphabet letter to start on and the students pass around the turkey going through the chord, alphabet or interval.  Try going backwards.  You could also recite the lines of the bass clef, the flat order, etc . .

Tough Turkey Directions

UNO Directions

Eight is Enough Directions