As a teacher in a private school (and also a private studio), I have a great deal more flexibility in my teaching style and curriculum choices than public school teachers. I (thank God) do not have to follow a core standard or teach every child the exact same way with the exact same book at the exact same rate, which is what brings me to my current topic. As a first year college student many years ago, my now favorite professor of education imparted this one thing on our class: one of the golden rules is that not all students learn by the same method or through the same book or at the same rate. I saw a pin on Pinterest the other night (but did not pin it at the time) and, now that I am specifically looking for it, I cannot find it, of course...so I will just state up-front that the credit goes to another. The quote read something like this: "one of the problems with standardized curriculum and testing is that not every student has a standardized mind." I am a prime example of this. I learned by anything but the standard way all through my education career and most thought that, because I couldn't do well on standardized testing, that I wouldn't succeed in college...much less graduate school.
I have a couple young piano students who struggle with note naming, even after many hours of practice and in-lesson note naming activities. In reality, there is only so much of going over something one way before you change your approach because you are so obviously just spinning your wheels. I have sometimes exhausted the books so-to-speak in some of my old resources from other people, so I decided to come up with some new ones of my own. One of the ways that I like to teach is not to just teach something new, but something new that also reinforces something else previously learned simultaneously. That is why I spent about thirty minutes earlier this morning creating this new note naming activity which utilizes some memorable scriptures for two of my piano students this afternoon. It is my goal to continue compiling and creating resources to help my music students reinforce their method books in ways that will hopefully be more fun than some of the activities in their books...hopefully they won't see some of them as "boring old theory."
In the meantime, I want to offer them to you! Below is a sample of what I am working to compile. They are simple in layout and can be tailored to suit your needs. If you would like full PDF copies of any of the materials, please comment below OR email me at bkbh (dot) music (at) gmail (dot) com or simply use the contact feature from the blog. If you would like the original blank copies so that you can change up note placement or switch clefs, please specify that in your message and I will email those to you as well. To help make things easier, I have also created an answer key page so you can send home with parents to help them help their children between lessons. Please note that, since most of my students are through a private church/school, the note-naming activities are based on familiar scriptures from the Bible.
I hope you enjoy this resource with your young musicians. :-)
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