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Parts of the Violin – Clip Cards
Print out these parts of the violin – clip cards for your beginners. I like to print them on card stock so that they last more than 1 week. If you want to use them in your studio for multiple students, you might want to laminate them. Your local office supply store can laminate them for you or you can laminate them yourself. These self-seal laminating pouches that are the size of business cards and laminate each card. I like to laminate cards that I will reuse in my studio. If I send the parts of the violin clip cards home with my student, I’ll just print out on card…
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Finger Number Bingo
Looking for some new ideas for the new year? Here is a game Finger Number Bingo. I was looking for a pre-reading piece for one of my piano students and some of the piano activity pages I saw had me thinking about how to incorporate them with my violin students. My brain seems to come up with these ideas when I am supposed to be thinking about something else or going to sleep. Any one else? I adapted a piano finger number game for violin finger numbers. It’s a game that helps reinforce left hand finger numbers for beginners, and practice partners can play easily with students at home. You don’t need to…
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Pick an Apple – Twinkle Activity
We are all social distancing since COVID-19 is here. That means extra time to practice. So here’s a game for beginners called “pick an Apple.” It is an activity that reinforces Twinkle. Right now there is no soccer practice, or play dates, or even preschool happening. While elementary and above are getting activities to do at home. Preschoolers don’t have work to do at home. In order to help parents take advantage of this time, I’ve created some resources to help them to solidify all the skills we use in Twinkle. Build in more receptions and keep their interest by creating different activities using the same skills. This activity is…
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Prep for Twinkle Variation B
Today we are talking about prep for Twinkle Variation B. Variation B can be hard for some kids to get. It’s really hard for violinist to stop playing! Right? Whether it’s stopping at the end of a song, or just not playing through the rest! My orchestra director that I had growing up used to say, “I don’t like noodles, except in my beef stroganoff.” The fact that I remember that saying 20 years later, tells you how much we “noodled” while he was trying to give instruction in rehearsal. In Variation B that rest seems to make us forget to play the next note. I’ve had several students that…
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Group Class – Dinosaur Day
Yesterday was group class Dinosaur Day! I created a theme lesson all about dinosaurs for our Twinklers group class. Dinosaur Day was a great hit! I first thought of this when a friend posted that she found some dinosaur erasers in the “spot” section at Target. She used them with a student. And the dinosaurs fit right on the bow. I thought how fun would that be to have a dinosaur ride on your bow for a whole group class? The more I thought about more and more ideas came to mind. Since dinosaur is 3 syllables, it would be perfect to practice Twinkle Variation D, the triplets! Triplets can…
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Compose with Puzzles
Here is an activity for beginners to encourage their creativity. And learn to compose with puzzles.. This is the second activity for beginners for teaching composition. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make improvising and creating less scary for violin students. It seems to me that if we include structured activities for improvising or composing, that students will be more likely to try it at any level of playing. Most beginners are willing to try anything. Since everything is new. And they are like little sponges absorbing information and sounds. I’ve also been looking for ways to do the same bow patterns and finger patterns packaged differently. It…
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A Beginner Christmas Practice Story
Where the idea came from I have 6 beginners that I started this year and I’m teaching the pre-Twinkle beginner group class at the Centenary Suzuki School. So, my brain has been full of all things beginner. We had our holiday concert last night and played all of our favorite beginner and open string songs. Songs like, Up Like a Rocket, and Pumpkin on a Fencepost, Listen to the Bird Tweet and Open String Blues. It will be 4 weeks before we have group class and so it got me to thinking about how to keep them practicing over the holiday break. So I created a beginner Christmas practice story.…
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Listen to the Bird Tweet
Listen to the Bird Tweet is a great pre-twinkle song that helps us on our journey to Twinkle. The words are were created by Susan Kempter. Students play the rhythm from variation A in Suzuki Book 1 four times. At our school we first teach it using just 1 open string. So all 4 repetitions of the pattern are on one string. (But like any good Suzuki exercise, it can morph into whatever you need!) How this post developed: We have been doing lots of different pre-twinkle songs in group. Songs like, Up Like a Rocket, Pumpkin on a Fencepost, Chicken on a Fencepost, Open E Concerto, Open A Concerto,…
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Parts of the Violin
One of the activities I do at the very first lesson is teach the parts of the violin or viola. Both the student and I sit on the floor and we place their violin on the floor in between us. I will point to the violin and beginning on the same pitch as open A, I’ll sing, “Here is the violin.” The student then points and sings the same thing. Then moving up a step to B, I’ll sing, “Here is the scroll.” Going through all the parts of the violin. When the pitch gets up to the next A octave, I will then step the pitch back down until…
