After having to delay our Piano year by a week because of a broken pipe and all the repair/ cleanup mayhem that followed, we finally got our year off to a great start with Piano Parties!  For this round we had new games, and we had an excellent time with the students!

Our first game was a Fishing game – students fished for flashcards, identified the note or musical symbol on it, and then drew their answers on the whiteboard.  Our kitties were eager to help with this game….

Then we had a piano-playing game.  For this, students chose a word-card (made up of letters in the musical alphabet, of course) in a manner thought up by our students at the last Piano Parties:  You grab a card by whacking it with a Sticky Snake. The card sticks to the snake so you can retrieve it!  It’s lots of fun!  Once word-cards were chosen, each student played their words on the piano.  We asked students to try playing their words in 2 different ways.  It was very interesting to hear how different the same word can sound just by changing whether you go up or down to the next letter, or play it in the low, middle or high ranges – or all over the place!

Some students thought of playing their words as chords – and then combined them to make very interesting sounds!

This class also enjoyed twirling the snakes in sync with each other!

For our third and final game for these Piano Parties, we had MUSIC MATH.  Students had fun using the note-dots to answer their Music Math problems.

And some students also enjoyed answering their Music Math questions with another music-math equation!

Kermit decided to help with this game as well, which was very entertaining:

And lastly, of course these workshops wouldn’t be complete without the PARTY part!  Each Piano Party ends with a little social time and a lot of treats!  Featured treats were homemade sugar cookies with musical symbols on them, and gummy fish to celebrate our fishing game!

We were delighted to learn that Veggie Straws can indeed be used as straws!

The kitties are already missing all of you, and eagerly await the next Piano Parties!  : )