What is the most important thing we as piano teachers can do to ensure the success of our students?

I argue that it is teaching our students how to practice.

When children begin lessons (or teens and adults, for that matter), they are so excited! They love practicing and playing this new instrument and using the exciting new skills that they’ve learned. Lessons are fun, they’re a novelty, and that newness and novelty of it all propels them to practice at home!

But then, they hit the 4-week slump.

About a month or so into lessons, the novelty begins to wear off, and the reality that is the need for consistent practice sets in. As teachers we see these students for a half hour, one hour per week tops. No matter what we do to make lessons fun and exciting, no matter how encouraging we are, the amount and quality of the practice at home is what will help them to truly progress.

And so it is imperative that we do a couple of things:

1. Give our students the practicing skills necessary to practice well, to practice efficiently and to make the most out of their daily practice!
2. Get the parents on board. The parent is the one who is sitting at the piano with their child every day helping with the practice session. (Or maybe they’re not helping, and they need some encouragement to know what an appropriate amount of practicing help is needed for their child.) We need to give these parents some guidance on how great practicing should go!

The difference between great practicers and not-so-great practicers is huge, as is the difference between a child with a supportive, involved parent who helps them practice well and consistently, and one whose parent doesn’t know how to help. Let’s try and bridge that gap and help all of our students succeed!

This free printable is an awesome way to get piano parents on board from the get-go. It’s a parent/teacher/student contract that lays out the roles of each party in this music learning triangle.

And are you, like me, getting tired of writing out the same old practice steps over and over and over and over in your students’ music? Think of the minutes you could save to spend on other important things when you don’t need to write “count out loud” and “say letter names” and “curve those fingers!” 12 million times. This free printable set of Perfect Practice Stickers is just what you need! Simply print on an Avery 8160 label, then peel and place on your students’ music. They can follow the steps and check them off, and you don’t need to write a thing! You’re welcome.

In my teaching lately I have been focusing a lot on landmark notes and intervallic reading. I think it’s so cool when a young student can learn right from the beginning how to sight read by intervals and directions on the staff – and they get so excited to be able to “read” music so easily and quickly! There’s plenty of time to learn those letter names; I find that using mnemonics too much can be a crutch that stops students from becoming great sight readers early on.

So today I’d like to share some fun resources that can help your piano students get started learning those landmark notes on the staff and gaining those skills to sight read right from the get-go! I made resources to help my students in those areas and as the ideas kept coming it ended up turning into my French Piano Pack. I think you’re going to love it!

Just like the Russian Piano Pack and the Irish Piano Pack, this resource includes a variety of printable activities and materials that can be used with individual students or with a group. There’s something for every level in this pack, which makes it an awesome way to run a studio unit on France for a month! I think it would be so fun to assign French piano literature to each student as you study the music of the French composers, learn about Impressionism and more!

I’ll highlight a few of the great resources included in this pack.

I had a blast creating the Name That French Composer game! I dug through lots of my old college notes and projects and read up on a lot of the great French composers such as Debussy, Ravel, Messiaen, Satie and more! This is a fun card game that can be used individually or in a group in a variety of ways. Students will learn 3 fun facts about each composer, listen to 2 or 3 examples from their piano literature, and learn their dates and photos and a famous quote from each composer. These cards can be used as flashcards, as a listening assignment, or as a few different games to be played at a group class or a lesson.

Students will be able to learn all about Impressionism with the resources in this pack. They will learn about the common characteristics of an Impressionist piece and compose their own! In conjunction with this composition activity there is a listening assignment, and they will also be introduced to different scales and modes used commonly in that genre.

Using famous French landmarks as examples – the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, the Arc de Triomphe and the Cathedral of Notre Dame – students will learn all about landmark notes and how they help you know where you are on the piano. This pack comes with a couple of different sets of flashcards and a few worksheets to help learn their landmark notes. The Steps & Skips Strips are fabulous for learning about steps and skips and directional reading (up and down) on the staff and keyboard, and will have all of your beginning students sight reading in no time!

I love the French Piano Practice Chart that I included in this pack – it’s a picture of the Louvre Museum that students can color one section at a time as they practice throughout the month. You could also hang the completed artwork in your studio as your students fill them in!

There are 11 different activities included in the French Piano Pack. I hope you and your students enjoy! The French Piano Pack is available for purchase in the Shop.

Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, new in the Shop today is the Irish Piano Pack! I am really excited about this fun pack of resources that includes over 30 pages of materials that cover topics in music theory, piano technique, composition, sightreading skills and music history/appreciation and listening. This fun piano unit on Ireland includes a study of piano nocturnes, focusing on Irish pianist and composer John Field and his impact. You can use it with individual students at private lessons or with several students at a group class. It includes 2 sets of fun and original flashcards (with suggestions for use in private or group settings) to help improve note-naming, rhythm-counting and sightreading skills.

Activities included in this pack:

• Counting Clovers – Students listen to examples from piano literature and identify if there are 3 or 4 beats per measure, then color the coordinating shamrock.
• The Lilt o’ the Shamrock – Students listen to Irish folk songs and identify if there are 3 or 4 beats per measure, then color the coordinating shamrock.
• Shamrock Measures – Students look at a rhythm example, identify the meter and then circle either the 3-leaf or the 4-leaf shamrock.
• Clap and Count Clovers – A fun set of shamrock flashcards for practice in clapping rhythms; includes suggestions for several different individual and group activities using the flashcards.
• Rainbow Flashcards – Super fun flashcards that are excellent for practicing naming letter names more quickly and improving sightreading skills. Teaches students to find the correct note quickly without “fishing” for notes with fingers by practicing the technique of floating the wrist up and reaching for the next note while the hand is above the keyboard, then aiming and landing directly on the note. Includes directions for three different levels of use.
• Piano Nocturnes Listening Assignment – Students learn about piano nocturnes, listen to examples of nocturnes by seven different composers from four countries and fill out the worksheet while listening.
• Draw a Nocturne – An alternate option for the Piano Nocturne Listening Assignment, particularly ideal for younger students. Students draw a picture of the night scene that they hear while listening to a piano nocturne.
• Compose a Nocturne – Students learn a little bit more about the history of nocturnes and what specifically characterizes a piano nocturne, then they have a chance to compose their own nocturne on the accompanying manuscript paper pages.
• Ireland Clipart Printables – Includes blank copies of the rainbow and shamrock clipart used in this pack for optional use in decorating your studio or in other music activities of your choice.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Don’t miss the Russian Piano Pack as well, featuring tons of fun and original piano resources!