Finding a Spark
Often with very young children, concentration span is limited to small chunks at a time and this means a teacher will need to find ways to find a 'spark' and engage the child in innovative ways. It can be quite challenging! To combat a child 'switching off' it is important to have some fun interactive music activities at your disposal and one of the simplest is clapping and challenging a child to repeat a rhythm. Some teacher use flash cards to make note recognition games and others share their screen and use sibelius in various wasy to switch it up. You may like to be more creative and think about making up stories or going round the 'music zoo' to make animal noises. Think about pupil vs teacher games where there is an element of competition which can really raise the spirits and build rapport with your pupil.
Here are some ideas used for young child piano lessons:
- Stretch your arms out and touch the furthest away keys
- Hide fingers as you choose one of the 5 notes make the other person guess which one
- Animal noises, making up stories, drawing the notation
- Clapping rhythms - ask pupil to copy then change around
- Passing the small star and the big star.
- Hold your hands at the top of the mountain, drop down to sea level (piano keys)
