As two grinning young people blasted through my door and ricocheted off the walls, I thought that, like Tigger, they were “feeling bouncy today.” So, what do you do when your students need to blow off some steam before they can begin to settle down enough to work or need a break during a lesson?

Here are some activities that don’t take a lot of time and can be incorporated at any point in a lesson no matter what the level. Best of all, you can extend and reinforce lesson plans rather than move away from them. Just keep groups of cards together in your teaching closet so you can grab what you need quickly and you are good to go.

Spot Your Place

Have your student find a position on the keyboard. Then, have them run (or walk quickly), touch something, and come back and place their hands in the same place. I use my door because it is a straight shot from the piano bench and there is nothing to trip over or knock down. You can spot correct posture, the correct position to begin a piece or passage, patterns, chords, etc. It’s actually giggly fun to ask them do horrible posture or incorrect hand position one or two times during the game.

Teacher May I?

This one works individually or for small groups and is similar to, you guessed it, Mother May I. To start, move the student back some distance from the piano.  Again, be sure that the path is clear. Students ask, Teacher may I; Play G?  Play a D five finger pattern? Play a C minor chord? Play a song?

You can choose to say Yes you may or No you may not. If you say yes and the student does the element correctly, they can move forward 2 steps. If you say no, the student stays in one place as tradition demands. If they move, then they must take a giant step back. Sometimes, I say no and then give them an alternate thing to do, especially if I need to up the level of their questions. It’s fun to say things like place your hands in Not E major five finger pattern or Not all the Ds on the keyboard.

With all this moving back and forth from the piano, it’s easy to lose track of where a student was standing last. To eliminate confusion (and extra discussion), I mark where they are on the floor with a beanbag during each turn. The game is over when they reach the piano.

Monster Rhythm Composition

Make or purchase large size flash cards with various rhythms. I keep mine separated by approximate level so I can grab them quickly. I usually begin by placing a few in a line on the floor and the rest upside down in a pile nearby. The student walks along and claps the “composition”. On the next turn they add a card anyplace they wish, and clap that. Students get a kick out of making their composition so long that it has to bend around a corner.

If you need to add more movement, you can place single cards at stations around the room rather than in a line. This activity can be extended to an improvisation by having students move cards to the music rack and create a melody for them. In fact, this is a great way to bring them back to the bench, focused and ready to move on.

Roll the Dice

Download templates or purchase dice with letter names, rhythms, or numbers on them. I like to use extra-large dice. The student rolls one die on the floor and then must return to the piano and do whatever came up. We find all the Ebs, play a D scale, play chords and progressions, improvise in specific rhythms, improvise in specific scales, and more.

I have free extra-large dice templates available here and yes, spinners will work just as well as dice. Try making a giant floor spinner. You can use index cards for the labels so you can switch them out quickly. There are tablet spinner apps with labels that can be customized as well. I use Decide Now. Just be sure to place the tablet some distance away from the keyboard. Want to use a musical board game to get the wiggles out? Just place the spinner or dice on the floor so students have to get up and down.

Zillion Card Pick-up

Throw a bunch of flash cards on the floor. Students then need to find all of something as quickly as possible. You can use nearly any concept for this; 5 finger patterns, chords, scales, pitches with sharps, etc. You can also have them put note values in order from longest to shortest, dynamics from loudest to softest, and tempos from slowest to fastest. I usually have them go to the piano and demonstrate the element when they are done.

 

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