By Christy | The Practicing Pro
Read the Blog HERE and get your FREE Halloween activities download
Hello practicing parents and teachers,
What did you do yesterday? I went to a funeral for my dear friend Teressa, who passed away far too soon. She has four young adult boys who all spoke about their mom at the service. They all had a common theme in what they said - want to know what it was? They loved how their mom made everything FUN. She consistently made the extra effort to make every trip, every holiday, every job, and simply everything they did just a "little more FUN". Was your music practice fun yesterday? Halloween is coming soon, and there’s nothing better than an upcoming holiday to make it that much easier to have fun Let me do some of the work for you! Here are 3 easy practice activities for you to pick from: a ghost, some pumpkin faces, and some masks. Each one will only take a few minutes to prepare and will bring you DAYS of FUN when you practice your music at home and in your studios.
Let's all be like my dear friend Teressa and not be too busy to take a minute to make our everyday tasks a little more fun together.
Before you and I both rush off and get busy for today, take a minute and print out a quick and fun practice activity right here based on what you need to work on.
For listening 31 times to your CD or a new song coming up try the
31 days of Halloween GHOST HERE. This can also work for scales. Practice 31 scales 3 times perfectly, for example. You can also do 31 review pieces. If you complete 6 a day then you will finish the chart in 5 days, with 7 to complete on the last day.
NOTE: For this activity, you just need cotton balls, but you can also just mark them off too if you are in a pinch! If you are doing this as a school, I made 200 sandwich bags and counted out 31 cotton balls in each bag one year for the kids. Hmm...that was A LOT of work! If I were to do it again now I would have simply given one sheet of white circle label stickers (that you can buy in bulk) to each student. You live and learn!
Working towards a book concert? No problem -use the 7 Halloween Masks activity. This will help you work on and review a song until it's performance-ready. Make your mask and record yourself playing the song in your mask, and/or take a photo. You can do a final concert and change masks for each song. You can put on a special creative concert and choose the mask that you think best suits each song. Tell the stories of each song at the concert. You can even make a program with drawings from each of the stories.
Want a week of hard-working practice? Make a pumpkin patch. Cut out a pumpkin for each day that you will do your activity. Each practice do a review piece, scale, or a tricky nugget that you master etc... for each one of the face pieces. Decide beforehand when you make the activity what the face pieces will represent. After you complete your pumpkin patch (you can glue them to a poster board) take a trip to the store or to a pumpkin farm and get your own pumpkin to eat or to carve!
Check out my Free PDF download Checklist for a Successful Music Practice for teachers and practicing parents.
Your easy checklist for successful home music practices from Christy, the practicing pro. Whether you are a new or seasoned practice parent or music teacher, this checklist will help you organize before, during, and after practices for effective and fun practices.
INVITATION from Christy Hodder:
Speaking of amazing practices, let me tell you all about the digital course, the Practicing Pro Academy. This is for the serious practicing parents and music teachers and is an at-your-own-pace, step-by-step, online course to bring you more effective, positive, and fun home music practices. Registrants receive a special package in the mail from me, and I am with you in person with Q&As to answer all your questions.
Learn more about PPA and join the waitlist HERE for the next Practicing Pro Academy course. It's only offered once a year so you don't want to miss it. The registration will only open for a few weeks and I'll let everyone on the waitlist know immediately so that you can grab one of the spots.
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