A Peek Into Ms. Michelle's Studio...

When I think of Let's Play Music, I think of:

FUN

             SAFE

                           PLAY

                                        CHALLENGE
          


Before a parent signs up their child for Let's Play Music, they don't always know what to expect. Something about group piano lessons, playtime, bells, time commitment - probably all things my current and former students' parents will tell you about.  But what you can't get from talking to other parents or see in a flier are in-the-moment, live action class experiences.

That's why I'm holding FREE - yes free - Sample classes this summer. Come try out this class, with no commitment required. This is my way of giving you a sneak peek into my classes, and show you how a 3-year curriculum can be playful and fun, while still teach music theory I didn't learn until college, and develop a complete musician with proficient piano skills.  Click on this link to sign up for a FREE sample class today!

Still a little hesitant?  Not sure you want to make the leap? (Did I mention that the Sample Class is FREE?)  Here's some more to entice you.  In compliance with PA's new laws to protect children, I have completed and have clear background, police, and FBI checks.  I used to teach K-6 music, so I need them anyway, but I keep them current as a courtesy to my parents (and so I can volunteer at my kids' schools, and in my church organization).  Since my husband is sometimes home while I teach, he has completed and cleared them, too.  Also, our babysitter, who watches my own kids while I teach has been checked and cleared, too. Needless to say, my home is safe.  It is also a fun, challenging, learning, play place for your child(ren) to learn the piano.

Still not trying to bang the door down to get into a (FREE!) Sample Class? ...Maybe a photo tour of my studio could show better than I could ever describe what happens in a Let's Play Music class.  A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Now, before you think my class is scary...It's not scary at all!

We're just learning music (although our games sometimes make us pretend to be scary). :)

For example, we use the WHOLE BODY to learn about our staff.  Baby steps, skips, leaps, all FEEL differently; we jump from lines to spaces, and have a great time playing, too!

It doesn't take long before the kids can read chord maps well enough to play the autoharp independently.  This skill translates very nicely into playing chords (and reading music) on the piano in the 2nd year of Let's Play Music.

Sometimes, the goofy stuff we do LOOKS like we're just being goofy...

...but all of our games, activities, and lessons are chock full of music theory, ear training, note reading, sight singing, classical music training, and more!

Parents come to class every other week the first year
(once a month in 2nd and 3rd years).  For those who need a little
encouragement, parents are their safety net.

For those bubbly, outgoing, 4-going-on-40 types, they are allowed the
independence needed to feel capable, and can show what they know 
to their parent on parent weeks.  They also get every other week 
to show their stuff in a students-only class.  This is NOT a performance
class.  Rather, it is a learning place with opportunities for all kinds
of new experiences (including a once-yearly performance).

While playing games, the children (and parents) learn solfege - a music language (think Sound of Music: Do, a deer a female deer, Re a drop of golden sun, etc).  This language allows the students to see pitches in relation to each other, and makes it much easier when teaching the students to transpose music in the 3rd year of Let's Play Music (and beyond)!

Whether skipping on a floor staff,

 singing and signing solfege hand signs down a major scale,

playing ostinati on tone bells,

dancing and playing to classical music,

recognizing cadence patterns during a game,

or playing the Autoharp with I, IV, and V chords, Let's Play Music is a fast-paced, fun-filled learning adventure!  Want to see some more?  So will your child!  

Stickers on the chords help little fingers remember chord patterns.

Our puppet friend, Ed, makes a weekly visit to class.

The kids learn to help each other, and learning happens with less lecture, and more trying and doing.  The rest of the photos are ones that a caption just wouldn't do it justice.  I hope you see the fun and excitement that Let's Play Music can be.  If you'd like to learn more about the program, check out our website here.  If you live in the Pittsburgh area, and want to know more about classes starting this fall, contact me here or sign up for a FREE Sample Class here!

Thanks for joining me on my photo tour of my Let's Play Music studio! I hope to see you in Sample Classes this summer!

Recital 2015!

Each of my Let's Play Music recitals are as unique as the children who participate.  Just look at the differences in their shoes - no pair is alike!

This year, the recital was held at Technique by Toni Dance Studio, which proved to be the perfect venue!   The kids performed well, the audience of family and friends were so supportive and encouraging to the children, and the experience was worth every ounce of work.  I think everyone had a great time, and it was a great celebration to their first year of Let's Play Music learning!  I just can't say enough good about this year's group of kids!

I don't have words that would do the recital justice.  So I'll make an end to my post, and begin the photo journal of my 2015 Spring Let's Play Music Recital.  Enjoy!

Thanks, students and parents of my graduating Blue Bugs students!  It was a great year!  See you in the fall to begin the Green Turtle Shells semester!

Sincerely,

Hiding WORK in PLAY!

How do we make WORK feel more like PLAY?  

How do we get our kids off their devices, so they can 

LEARN and GROW and CREATE?

Fred Rogers says this: "Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning.  But for children, play is serious learning.  Play is really the 'work' of childhood."  So, what? Am I supposed to give my kids free reign of the house, while I slave away, cleaning up their messes?  Fat chance!  Yes, I've occasionally been "that mom" who let my kids watch too much Netflix after school, just so I can get some work done faster and more efficiently, but more often I have told (well...maybe more yelled at) them that they can't leave their bedrooms until those rooms are clean - and they better be PERFECT!  Not my best moments, to be sure.

There's gotta be a happy medium somewhere.  

Surely, Mr. Rogers didn't mean never to get any work done.  Life can't always be a trolley ride or a puppet show, although both are great sometimes. But, maybe he meant the work should become the play.  I don't claim to have all the answers, but these are some Belliston family inventions that have popped up in the past few months that have changed our home for the better.

Movie making nights - Our kids BEG to use our phones.  One night, when my husband was working late, I let them make a movie (on his phone that he accidentally left at home).  With a bribe that Mason get his Sound Beginnings puppets cut out for class the next morning, I said that not only could they use Dad's phone, but that I'd synch it to our Apple TV and all watch their "masterpiece" together when it was complete. (Truth be told, I was looking for 15 minutes to finish a book I'd been reading...) We all love this now!  This is what my kids came up with that week:

Now, the part the kids won't tell you about (but I sure will!) is that we hide some learning and work into the play.  In an attempt to teach my kids some tech-savviness (is that a word?), I made them figure out the movie thing all on their own.  There were many pictures of their knees before they got to this proficiency of video recording.  I also made them figure out how to synch the iPhone with the Apple TV - they were so quick to figure it out!  I also said that the living room needed to be clean before we watched their movie on the Apple TV. Work and play combined so well! (And it's amazing how fast they clean up when they want to play their movie!)

Card Making Parties - I don't think I'm the only one who likes a little peace and quiet in the car sometimes.  Great for me, but not so great for getting in that super-important CD listening for the Let's Play Music music.  I put it on in the living room, and needed to find a way to get the kids to LISTEN to it!  So, since great-grandma Hrabar's birthday was that weekend, I sat the kids down to make her some cards.  Maggie got some relatively focused CD-listening in, while both kids got their creative juices flowing.  

"Let's Go Fly A Kite" - One cold night in February, we watched Mary Poppins.  Since then, the kids have been begging to make kites.  So, since piano practicing was becoming a little more of a fight, I started letting Maggie have 5 minutes of kite construction for every day that she practiced her piano.  After about a month, it was done (I really milked that as long as I could...they were great looking kites!)  Finally, a great, windy day came, and we got to try them out!

The best part?  We ran outside, and were singing "Let's Go Fly a Kite" during the first flight!  The kids learned fast that cool looking kites don't always make for the best fliers.  We googled how to improve their lift and made them more efficient (which bought me another no-fight piano practice session).  We also had some hedges that needed some serious trimming, so we had the kids help haul the clippings out of the way with the disguise that they should find the perfect sticks for the kites.  They stuck with moving sticks for almost an hour!  What a perfect way to hide work in PLAY!  This was a few weeks ago, and they STILL talk about how cool that day was.  I don't feel bad at all putting so much work into that event.  Totally worth it for all of us!

Want to know what really hit me?

All of the MUSIC in these types of PLAY!  

Whether it be rocking out to the Yellow Arrows CD while we make cards, or singing Mary Poppins songs while flying kites, my kids - as well as many other children - are drawn to music.  The last picture is Mason watching a musical at Maggie's elementary school.  I brought snacks, coloring books, and little toy cars to keep him entertained so I could watch Maggie's performance.  What I didn't anticipate was that he'd be totally glued to the music.  Be still, my heart!

How does this non-musical stuff (movies, cards, kites)

relate with Let's Play Music?  

Let's Play Music has established a series of patterns in my home.  For example, we started cutting out blackbird puppets for Mason's Silver Buttons (Sound Beginnings) homework, which just naturally turned into movie-making.  

Maggie has always been very advanced at school.  Reading, math, science - she's lightyears ahead.  In music, she's WAY ahead of most kids, but in her individual Yellow Arrows class she's *gasp* average.  At first it got her down, but then her brilliant teacher, Karri Mickelson, suggested that she put on a concert for her stuffed animals while she practiced.  What started as work became PLAY, and now that PLAY has moved to the non-music parts of our life.  She now brings those stuffed animals along to watch her clean the bathroom, do her laundry, and wash the dishes.  (Animals are sitting on the counter...sorry they didn't make it into the shot.  But, happy kid making dinner twice a week - WIN!)

What about YOU?

Has your family invented a new pattern because of Let's Play Music?  Parents of my students have shared some stories with me about how some new patterns in their lives have emerged, which have made their homes a little more playful, a little more productive, or a little more joyful.  To my past and current parents, or to other parents and teachers of Let's Play Music students - comment below if your family has developed a new pattern at home because of Let's Play Music. For future students, or those looking for more information, click here for a link to sign up for a FREE Sample Class!

Pajama Day 2015!

Here are photos from this week's class - PAJAMA DAY!  Here are a few shots to capture both our pajama-wearing, and our costume-wearing moments.  This week, for our puppet show (Verdi's Triumphant March, from Aida,), we dressed up like our puppets.  We have SO much fun in music class!  Thanks, parents, for letting me keep the kids a couple extra minutes to click some pictures!

These photos are from my 5pm class.  So sad we had one boy sick - luckily, my "lone ranger" boy who came to class got to be the king AND the knight!

Do you know how hard it is to 

pick just one of these to post?  

Well...so hard, I didn't!  

Seriously, I have the best job 

ever!  These kids are hilarious!  

These pictures are from my 12:30pm class.  Since it's an all-girls class, EVERYONE wanted to be the princess for our puppet show!  We had a hard time getting everyone to look at the camera, because we were having too much fun!

Aren't these girls so incredibly darling?! 

Even with all of this fun, we learned today, too!  (Who knew, right?)  The kids played the Autoharp - all by themselves, they learned Major vs minor tonality, reviewed staff reading, solfege hand signs, and more - all while PLAYING!  First Year of Let's Play Music so perfectly combines play with theory training, so the kids can be ready for Second and Third Year, where we continue the playing and the theory learing, and also learn to play the piano!


Want to know more?  So will your child!  Next week is bring-a-friend to class week.  If you'd like your child to come, check out my studio-specific information, and then register for my free, risk-free sample class here.  For more information on the program, visit the Let's Play Music Website.