In the fall I run a 5 week flash card challenge in my studio. Each week the kids try to outdo their previous week's performance and are always excited to see how they measure up against the other students. Of course, I always have new students that start in the fall, who are not quite ready for flashcards when the challenge begins. They always look sadly at the chart and wonder why their names do not show up. This year I have created a category just for them.
Several years ago, I copied an idea from a brilliant teacher's blog to use half marbles labeled with a letter from the musical alphabet to aid with note recognition. The students race to see how quickly they can match the letters on the half marbles to the correct keys on the piano. On my previous set I stuck a circle sticker on the bottom of the half marble and hand wrote the letter. Sadly, my writing is not of the school teacher variety and some of my letters (G's) caused confusion. So I decided to borrow the half marble refrigerator magnet idea. I printed letters out on cardstock and using a glue runner, I attached them face up to the marble. The marble has a a cool magnifying glass effect on the letter (hard to see in the photos.) I made enough to cover the whole keyboard and then two octaves worth for each child to take home and practice with.
My beginning students will now race every week to see if they can beat their own time, placing the marbles on the piano.
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