Violin String Names for Young Beginners | Printable Coloring Page

I've recently started to make some fun coloring pages for my young beginners as a take-home reenforcement for what they have been learning in the lessons. These are partly just for fun, but there is some educational benefit as well.

I'd like to share a free printable coloring page with you today. This coloring page helps teach the letter names of the violin strings using animals for each string, as follows:

G: Giraffe

D: Dolphin

A: Ape

E: Eagle

I chose these particular animals because I thought they would be familiar to most young kids. (I decided against using an eastern quoll.)

I also chose animals with beginning sounds similar to how the name of the actual letter sounds. For example, I chose giraffe (instead of gorilla) because it has a soft "G" at the beginning, similar to the way the name of the letter "G" is pronounced. I chose eagle (instead of elephant) because the beginning sound is a long "E", like we would pronounce the name of the letter. This seems to pose less confusion to very young pre-reading students who are not as familiar with alternative sounds that letters can make.

Additionally, I chose animals that might be useful in explaining the size relationship of the strings. For example, giraffes are very big and tall! Just like the G is the biggest string. Eagles are the smallest of those four animals, and E string is the smallest string. Also, Eagles fly way up high in the sky, and the E string note is way up high.

I hope your students enjoy this as much as mine have. I don't know any young kids who don't love coloring, and this is a great way to reenforce what was taught in the lesson and help the kids remember the names of the strings. Click here to download your own violin strings coloring page!

Enjoy!

DIY Nonslip Violin Foot Chart for Beginners

Hi, everyone! I'm excited to share this tutorial with you.

When I was four years old and just starting out on violin, I remember my mom cutting up a cardboard box and tracing my feet in rest and play position so I could know just where to put them.

A nice thing about using a foot chart for young beginners, besides teaching the placement of the feet, is that it also helps creates a visible and tangible "boundary" for them. It's easy for kids to understand this is their violin mat, and that's where the students sits or stands during lessons and practice time. I think it helps with staying focused on the task at hand by not allowing them to get distracted and wander (especially with short attention spans of youngsters).

A disadvantage I saw first hand with the cardboard box route was that it was slippery. Whether on carpet or another surface, it can slip and slide, which is very dangerous.

As I thought about what would be a good solution, I decided to use a yoga mat! These are made for the very purpose of not allowing slippage!!

I went to my local Ross store and got a cute orange yoga mat on clearance for $8.50. It has zebra stripes on one side, but is plain orange on the reverse.

I figured out it was long enough to cut into three equal "almost" squares. They're about 24"x22.66".

Then I needed a model, so I found the closest, wiggliest three-year-old I could and traced her cute little feet with a permanent marker.

And that's it!

I love how it turned out. It's easy to roll up and transport to lessons, if needed, although I have one here in my studio to use. But I find some students are just so excited about their mat and their feet traced on it, that they like to bring their own to lessons.

And it's not slippery!

And it's cute and orange, not sad cardboard brown!

So I got three mats out of this one yoga mat, which means each mat only cost me under $3!

A note about positioning feet: Some teachers like rest position to be parallel feet, then the student has to "unzip" the fit to make the toes point outward, then move the left foot forward to play position. I learned as a young student to have my rest position feet not be parallel, but to already have the toes point outward and the heels touching. I've decided to continue teaching it this way because it makes sense to me to eliminate the extra "unzipping" step. I just wanted to put this note in here as an explanation, in case it differs from what you've used. Either way works great and it's up to you as the teacher to decide.

Go make your own and post pictures so I can see their cuteness. If I were feeling very adventurous, I might even let the student have at it with markers and decorate it themselves. Maybe on another day when fewer wiggles are involved.

Music Teachers Book Club September 2014

For my Music Teachers Book Club in June/July 2014, we read Principles of Violin Playing & Teaching by Ivan Galamian.

The next book we are reading for August/September 2014 is Nurtured by Love by Schinichi Suzuki.

Feel free to read along too and comment here with your thoughts on what you learned. How does it apply to your teaching? What was new to you? What did you agree or disagree with? I look forward to

hearing your thoughts.

Printable Music Award Certificates - Blank Template

I've had a request to make my printable music recital certificates with a blank line, so the teacher can
write in what the certificate is for. What a great idea! Now these can be used for anything, from passing off a level, to completing a music festival. The possibilities are endless, and they're free, so why not go ahead and print 'em and use 'em all up. Your students will love them, I'm sure.  Who doesn't love getting recognition for a job well done??

You can still download the original recital award certificates here or under the printables tab.

Below are the links to the new printable music award certificates with a blank line to fill in yourself to indicate what it is for (also available under the printables tab). I hope you enjoy!

Outstanding Performance Award Certificate

Certificate of Excellence Music Award

Bravo Music Award Certificate

Bravo Music Award Certificate

Music Teachers Book Club June 2014

Well, I finally did it! I organized a Violin Teachers Book Club!

I've been wanting to do this for a looooong time (years!), and life finally slowed down a second for me

to get it together.

Here's how I've worked it out: I invited a small group of fellow violin teachers (really, it could be any instrument) to join me. Together, we voted on some suggested books on the subjects of violin playing and pedagogy, and chose the top pick as our selection to read for this month. On an upcoming day, we'll join together after reading it, and talk about our thoughts and questions and what we learned. I feel it's also going to be a great opportunity to network and become closer friends.

If you'd like to join me, I'll post the information for our reading selections as we go along so you can read as well. Then I'll post some of the highlights of our book club discussion afterward.

For this month, we are reading Principles of Violin Playing & Teaching by Ivan Galamian.

Feel free to join in the discussion by posting your comments on the reading below! I'd love to hear from you and learn from your expertise!

Music Composition with Found Objects, Part 2 - Group Music Lesson Plan Idea

The blog post to date with by far the most views is my post on Music Composition with Found Objects - Group Music Lesson Plan Idea.  Check it out!  It's a very fun way to help your students find music all
around them.

I want to add an update now.  In the original post, I linked to some youtube videos of John Cage's "Water Walk".  I've since been exposed to some awesome, fun, upbeat videos of my husband's friend making music with found objects in various locations, which he calls a "Beat Scout".  These videos are very easily accessible for a young audience and will help your students get really excited about making music with found objects and searching for music all around.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Fun!  I love these so much.  Even my three-year-old kid asks all the time to listen to Beat Scouts! :) If you are interested in checking out the rest of his videos, click here for his channel.

So, I just wanted to add this to the original lesson plan and I hope you and your students can have some fun with them!

DVD Case Wipe-off Boards for Music Group Lesson Activities

I really enjoy teaching group lessons.  It's really fun for kids to learn about music theory and composers and other topics in a group setting.

I just finished making these awesome Wipe-off Boards out of old DVD cases.  These "boards" have so many possibilities for the classroom or group lessons.  I think they are super rad!

There are so many ways to use these!  Just swap out the liner inside to fit your needs.  I printed the insert double sided, so its easily interchangeable.

So to make one yourself, just print out the sheets below, cut them to size, and insert in an empty DVD case.  Then give yourself a high five because you're done!  Best teacher award goes to you.

DVD Case Wipe-off Board Printable Insert 1
DVD Case Wipe-off Board Printable Insert 2

Then you can use the inside of the case to store the markers and eraser.  Love it!

I hope you have fun with these!  Feel free to share any ideas you have for learning activities and games to do with these.  Leave a comment below!

The Importance of Having a Good Online Presence for Private Music Teachers

I was recently interviewed by firstsiteguide.com on the importance of having a strong online presence for music teachers.  This is a topic I've thought a lot about, and it's part of the reason I decided to start a professional website and a music teaching blog.  It's a great way to boost your professional image while expanding your teaching pool.  The majority of my students now have come from google searches that led to my website.

Check out the full interview here.

So, if you are on the fence about whether you need to start a professional website for your teaching studio, I would highly recommend doing it!  First Site Guide has some great resources and steps to help you easily get online:

I am often asked how I made my studio website, so I'd like to share how easily I did it.  I used Music Teachers Helper, an online resource for music teachers.  They have free templates that you can use to get your website up, and you can link it to your own domain name.  It's super easy!

Beyond the studio website, Music Teachers Helper offers great resources such as lesson scheduling and invoicing for your students.  It makes organizing things and keeping track of things so easy!!  I've been using it for about a year and a half and I've noticed it saves me time when it comes to tracking payments, my lending library, and calendaring.  My students also have a log in so they can see their account and schedule.

Music Teachers Helper is now offering a FREE month trial so you can check it out and see how much it rocks.  There is no obligation to continue after that.  But I'm sure you'll like it. :)  They offer different tiers of usage based on your studio size, so 5 or fewer students is completely free!  And from there you only pay for what you need, and you can downgrade or discontinue at any time if you have fewer students over the summer, for example.

I am planning to write up more of a review on Music Teachers Helper soon, but for now, I wanted to let you know that I have coordinated with them to offer you a discount off of your first paid month (so sign up for the free trial, then the first paid month after that you can get a 20% discount!).  Use the promo code 32678E when you sign up for your free month trial so you can get your discount.

Again, if you are wondering if you should get a studio website, I say go for it!  If you're wondering where to start, check out firstsiteguide.com and their helpful resources, and look into musicteachershelper.com for free templates and further studio administrative help/services.

For those of you who have a website already, what benefits have you noticed?  How has it helped your studio?

Setting Goals for Yourself & Your Students in the New Year

This past week, I've been setting goals with my students for the new year.  This doesn't necessarily have to be associated with the new year, that was happenstance, but it is something I like to do often to help them have a focus and a deadline and a specific thing to work toward.

As teachers, it is equally important that we set goals for ourselves for improving our playing and our teaching skills.  There are always new ideas to try and we can always get better, no matter how good we already are!

So, while we are all in new year's resolution mode, I thought I'd share again some past posts about setting goals: one to help students with setting and reaching practice goals, and one that talks about setting goals for yourself as a teacher.

Enjoy!