New Displays- 2 for £2.50!
Today I’m giving a peek at two displays I made to brighten up piano lessons at the studio. Next week I am excited to start teaching piano at a primary school in West Didsbury. Their music room is a blank canvas, and our piano lessons will be the first music lessons to take place in there- so I have been busy making lots of displays and resources to welcome all my new students. I liked these two so much that I’m making another set to use in my home studio too!
First we have a super-easy-to-make garland in vibrant jewel tones. Doesn’t it look great above the tulips? They are my favourite spring flowers!
Cheap as Chips!
This cost me all of 50p from a pound shop for the frames and pegs. You could also make your own from envelopes or any kind of card stock if you cut out the centre with a craft knife.
Easy-peasy to customise
I simply printed out some of the common terms and symbols that I find myself referring to frequently in lessons in the first few terms of piano lessons. These are: finger numbers, keyboard geography, crotchet and quaver rhythms, dynamics, crotchet rest, slurs and the treble and bass clef.
I have deliberately made them not ‘cute’ or themed so that they are accessible by the widest range of pupils. As soon as I put a new display up my own children and pupils notice it and read everything on it. So it’s super important that whatever is in there is useful and relevant!
Versatile!
They can easily be swapped out, and I can imagine using them to display key signatures, composer timelines, motivational quotes, sight reading cards, practice suggestions, and questions /challenges.
Cost
50p. What a bargain!
Next, we have a bright hanging sol-fa hand signs display. I have always included singing in my lessons, and more recently we have started used sol-fa singing. As you can see my children were delighted by it and insisted on photo-bombing! That smile speaks for itself!
The benefits/uses
Sol-fa/Kodaly is a great way to develop pitch awareness more systematically and helps with interval training. Our son has spent the last year doing a Kodaly class, so I have had really enjoyed seeing the benefits of this aural approach and learning the progression of the sol-fa songs alongside him. So these hand-symbols are a useful reminder for both me and my pupils!
I will also use them in some sol-fa games for example where I point at the signs and they sing, or I sing/hum/play and they try to point at the correct signs.
Colour-coded
I chose the colours to match with my boomwhackers because I often use these for sol-fa work, although annoyingly they are labelled for solfege where C is always ‘do’. So I just ignore the alphabetical letters when using them for sol-fa. Sol-fa has ‘moveable do’ where any note can be ‘do’ (the tonic). This is much more useful!
Easy and cheap to make
I made this by cutting out sol-fa hand symbols in a bubble shape and mounting them onto colour coded backing paper daubed with spots of bright paint. After laminating I threaded keyrings through them to make a lovely hanging feature. Clipped to a box file on a high shelf it is very portable, yet it flutters beautifully, transforming an unused corner of the room.
Cost = probably about £2 for the keyrings, laminating pouches printing and paper.
There you have it- 2 bright and cheerful displays for under £2.50. I love adding a splash of colour and combining my love of teaching and crafting!