Christmastime in the Piano Studio

Can you believe it's already December? As we head into our final month of 2020 in the piano studio, I wanted to share a bit of what December looks like for us. What students will be working on, and how we add a little celebratory touch to our lessons for the holiday season. If you're a fellow piano teacher reading this, you can also read this as a little roundup of some of my favorite holiday resources. 

Performance Prep & Holiday Rep
We are gearing up for our Multi-Piano Christmas Festival, and will have our recording day in just a couple weeks! So this first week or two of December our focus will be on preparing for that festival, and polishing off any other Christmas repertoire or solo selections we've learned. We'll also make a list of our Seasonal Songs to Share so students have selections all chosen and ready to go for those family celebrations or quiet winter evenings over the break. 

Lots of Games
We'll get our music theory review in with some fun holiday themed games including some studio favorites like Heave Ho-Ho-Ho and Santa's Little Helpers. We use games throughout the year, but we do play a few extra this time of year because I think everyone's ready for the change of pace and a little extra celebratory feel. 

Holiday Music Theory Pages in Piano Lab
Our piano lab time is normally an assignment in our music theory app of the week followed by some progress in Piano Maestro. During the last couple weeks of lessons for December, I instead print out some fun holiday themed music theory coloring sheets. And again, we invite a little bit of fun and a slight change of pace into our final lessons of the calendar year. Piano Maestro also adds a holiday song selection this time of year that students have fun with when they are done with their worksheets. 

Holiday Music Craft
In our final week of lessons, after the Christmas Festival is completed and our songs are polished off, and we've played lots of games, We simply have a mini holiday recital of our own during lessons where students play through their seasonal songs, and we enjoy a duet or two if we can. And then we do a simple, musical Christmastime craft. In the past we've made treble clefs out of pipe cleaners and candy canes, or our own holiday themed music theory fortune tellers to play with over the break. This year, we are going to make this ornament out of some recycled sheet music.