Activities for children

[ignaciosante]

Hey everyone,

I'm new here and I signed up BECAUSE I need some help with this.

I recently started teaching a 7 year old boy. I was told that the attention span kids have is their age in minutes. So I need to use different activities and games through the lesson to keep this boy interested. I've been thinking of a couple, but if any of you would share any games or activities you do while teaching young children, that would be amazing.

Thanks!

Ignacio

[fleetfingers]

That's not right. A 7-year-old's attention span is not 7 minutes. Maybe you are thinking of the "time-out" rule? I've heard that children can be expected to sit still for their age times 10. Another reference is for homework, which is typically the student's grade times 10. So, for a 7-year-old, they should be expected to sit and work on homework for 20 minutes (assuming they are in 2nd grade).

Choose material that is interesting for the child. If he is learning how to do something and feeling confident about it, that is all you need. If you are working on something that is too hard, confusing, or boring for him, then he will not pay attention and will come to dislike piano lessons. A general rule I follow is not to continue with a particular piece or exercise if the attention starts to wander. At that point, little to nothing is being learned. Some lessons, we work on one piece for the entire 30-minute lesson - because he's staying focused and continues to learn. Most lessons, though, are broken up into two or more pieces/exercises. The trick is to find pieces he will want to learn and then expect that he can.

Personally, I don't want my lessons to be centered around fun or activities, because then the child will expect me to entertain him/her each week. Instead, I expect them to work, but I try to make it always rewarding for them, so they can go home feeling good about the lesson and ready to work more on their own. But, adding little fun things here and there helps. Get a die and have him roll it to see how many repeats he has to do. Or have him draw cards you made to see which part of the piece you're going to play next. Have a sticker chart to reward him when he masters the whole page, or just the RH of the piece, or whatever goal you have in place. Challenge him with a hard piece, then give him something easy and fun.

Now, that is considering a student who is 7. If he were 3 or 4, I would agree that the attention span is super short, and that more "entertaining" may be needed. But 7 is old enough to be expected to sit there and learn, and maybe just sprinkle in a few fun elements. Also, attention spans can be increased. If the child you're teaching has a hard time, don't assume it's because of his age. Seek to increase his attention span by small increments each week.

[timbo178]

Some of the games that I use are:

1. Musical Yahtzee. I obtained the score sheet from a website run by D'Net Layton. I made up my own dice to use.

2. Speed/Spit. Exactly like the card game (or its variations), but instead you've got cards with semiquavers to semibreves and you get rid of your cards by placing consecutively higher or lower cards on the either of the two piles in front of you.

3. Go Fish. Using grand staff flash cards.

4. Kings. This is the name of the card game on which it's based. Uses grand staff flash cards. I get students to spell a scale out in front of them, e.g. C major. The scale degree gives us the value of the note (e.g. G is worth 5, as it's the dominant). Deal four cards, and take in turns to take a new card and swap it with one of your current ones if it is a good card and you want to keep it. Aim is to get a low score, so if you have a B, worth 7 that's bad. If you pick up a C, worth 1, then keep it and throw out the B, and you have a lower score.

The last two games won't be good for a younger beginner until they know how to recognise all the notes on the grand staff fairly quickly.

Those explanations were fairly brief, so let me know if you want me to expand on any of them. I can also post the PDFs to print out the materials.

[green]

pdfs and more details would be great, thanks!

[timbo178]

Here are the materials for playing Speed. The instructions are a bit out of date as I've since added some extra cards to the pack (dotted quaver notes and rests, and a few extra dotted minims.) The pack doesn't contain dotted minim rests as they're not too common. I laminate the cards and then cut them out.

I'll post the others a bit later when I have a bit more time.

[timbo178]

Here are the Grand Staff Flash Cards. Can't remember how much I put in of each note, but there's a good range, from very low C to very high C.

Two games you can play with them:

1) Go Fish. Deal out 7 cards each. Match up any pairs, e.g. two Cs (doesn't have to be the same C) are a pair and are put to the side. Players ask each other for cards to complete pairs. If the person they ask doesn't, they say, 'Go Fish', and the person picks up a a card from the pile.

2) Kings. A bit harder to explain this one. Student spells out a scale in front of them using alphabet cards, depending on where we're up to with scales. E.g. G major. G is worth 1, dominant is worth 5 etc. I get the students to identify the tetrachords, tonic and dominant.

Deal four cards to each player face down. Players are allowed to look at two. They won't know what the notes are for the other two cards.

The aim is to get the lowest score. Depending on the scale, different cards will give you a lower score. For G major, keep the Gs, As, Bs, and you'll want to swap out anything that's higher. Going around, players pick up a card from the pile, read the note. If it's one they want (because it's a low one), they can swap it out for one of their higher ones.

Players have two cards that they don't look at. At some point they'll have to swap it out. E.g., a player picks up a G, and chooses to swap it with one of the two cards for which they don't know the note. If it turns out to be an A, worth 2, they still have to throw it out. The next player is allowed to take the good card.

If a player has decided that they've obtained a low enough to score to win, they knock on the table/floor and it leaves the rest of players one more round. Everyone counts their score, the person with the lowest score wins.

[timbo178]

The last game I mentioned was Musical Yahtzee. More info about the game here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahtzee

I used the score sheet from here:
https://laytonmusic.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/musical-yahtzee/

I made up my own dice (attached).