The following projects and handouts have helped me expand my students' horizons and vary our day-to-day business of trying to improve details like bow positions! I have made both a Word and a PDF available for you to download.
Pi Day - Circles
The math teachers at my school went crazy for Pi Day. We had a build up for a week and then an hour and half of activities for the whole school of 950 students. My contribution was to work on circles with the bow hand. I taught Mary and the variations by ear but I've included the sheet music below for the visual learners. Note: Celli always do the opposite bowing and bassi go down to the A-string. As a private teacher, I used to do this activity with Suzuki's Perpetual Motion. With Perpetual Motion, the circles change in the middle which requires some extra help for the students. Of course, you don't have to wait for Pi Day for this activity.
After practicing all week, I gave each student a glow bracelet (purchased at Dollar Tree - super affordable with 8 in a package) and we turned off the lights. The photos below were taken with my iPhone.
After practicing all week, I gave each student a glow bracelet (purchased at Dollar Tree - super affordable with 8 in a package) and we turned off the lights. The photos below were taken with my iPhone.
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Be the Teacher!
This worksheet is a great way for students to clarify how they understand note reading and help the parents have appreciation for the work their son or daughter is doing in strings/orchestra class beyond playing fun songs.
Genre Listening Project
I came up with this assignment for students to complete over our fall break. Students for the most part do not understand genre and when I haven't given students specific links some students come up with a K-Pop song for every genre or Lindsay Sterling suddenly becomes adept at classical and jazz. I tried to choose examples on YouTube that included young people. I'm hoping students will find a style of music that they will play for life. I recommend checking the links before passing this out to students, just in case.
Music Making Project
I often give this assignment over Spring Break (with allowances for students who are traveling the entire break) but it's great any time of year for 2nd year+ students or 2nd semester beginners. I wanted my students to experience what it takes to make music with other people or the steps involved in writing music. I have had some remarkable responses to this assignment including a composition for string orchestra by a 7th grader that we performed.
Penny Practice
This is a structured way to emphasize repetition practice with students at any level. Pennies make a great visual for how many successful repetitions a student has completed. The sneaky part is students just think they are supposed to do repetitions but I also ask them WHY they chose the spot and HOW did it help them to do repetitions over a week. I have restructured this assignment to give them specific repetition spots. The first song with slurs is a good example.
Rubric for Effort and Achievement
After reading about the impact of effort on learning, I wanted to help students identify their level of effort and equate that effort to achievement. We all know the timeline for effort and achievement is more than one week but I found that when I used this on a weekly basis with students in a classroom (vs. a private lesson setting) that the focus was lost after a few weeks. Now, I bring this assignment out about once a semester often as a way to help students focus while preparing for a concert.