Creative Kids Summer Class: Piano Play 2017

We just finished our first session of Creative Kids Summer Class, with our focus topic of the piano. Piano Play is one of my favorite classes to teach, and in the past I've spread out the lessons over 8 (1-hour) class sessions. This year, I condensed and combined many of the topics to fit into 3 (2-hour) class sessions. So it was a little different, but still a lot of fun to spend more time together exploring some basic musical skills and concepts. Here are some of the ways we played with the piano this week!

Exploring Sound

We explored and tried out different kinds of instruments, and made some sound-makers of our own. 

We used water glasses on the light table to explore the sound of different pitches, and created tambourine shakers out of paper plates. 

High and Low Sounds on the Piano

After we spent some time exploring all different kinds of sound, we started talking about differentiating sounds in music and on the piano. We began with listening to and creating high and low sounds. First we tried making them with our voices, and then we discovered how to play higher and lower notes on the piano, using the classic story of the Three Little Bears

We also looked at what high and low looks like on the musical staff as we listened to "The Aquarium" from Carnival of the Animals. In that song, you can hear the notes moving up and down the piano, like fish swimming up and down in the ocean, so we used fish stickers to think about that movement in the music.

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Fast and Slow, Loud and Quiet Sounds

We also thought about how music can sound fast, slow, loud, and quiet. A favorite activity during this topic is painting slow or fast depending on the sounds of the music. 

 We also popped some popcorn for a snack, and paid attention to the sounds of the kernels popping. They start slow and more quiet, and then crescendo into fast, loud popping sounds.

Patterns on the Piano Keyboard

We explored the pattern of the piano keyboard, and tried to find certain notes using that pattern.

 We used the felt piano, and a paper collage activity to try to recreate that pattern as well.

The Musical Alphabet

I like to use a silly story about Grandma's house and a doghouse to teach the names of the piano keys. We played a few games to explore the musical alphabet using the giant floor piano.

Musical Notes

We played with long and short sounding notes on the piano, created our own songs, and built some notes out of our snack food (cheese and carrot sticks).

 Musical Books

This class is full of dancing, singing, and instrument playing, but we also spend time reading fun stories that help us to further explore the concepts we are talking about. 

One of our favorite silly books from the session inspired this piano at the beach sensory bin.