October 16, 2015 by Sara Campbell 0 comments

Group Lesson Sneak Peek!

This has been our fall semester Group Lesson week, and what a week we’ve had! 37 students were split into 9 different groups throughout the week. (One more to go this afternoon!) Group lessons replaced our regular private lessons, and because groups were an hour long, many students got to spend twice the amount of time in the studio as normal.

Ava, Abbey, Mia, and Gianna test their skills at Music Jenga

While my active teaching hours were greatly reduced, the planning hours that went into this week were intense! Sometimes parents think that this is a “break” for teachers, but I can assure you… it isn’t.

I’ll go into more detail about our group lessons in the near future, but for now I’ll say this: I love group lessons. It gives teachers the ability to flex their creative muscles with new topics and games, and it gives students the peer interaction that drives them to practice and learn more.

… oh, and did I mention how fun group lessons can be?

Leave students unattended for 1 minute… #pianoforlife

If you’ve never tried group lessons in your studio… you should! They’re a bit tricky to organize at first, but once you get the first round under your belt, you’ll be a pro at it. All you need is a way to schedule the kids into groups and some creative/educational group activities. For scheduling I love Google Forms — it’s totally free, and you can make really beautiful looking forms. Check out this screenshot:

Group lessons was one of the big topics that I addressed in my portion of the Upbeat Piano Teachers Webinar. In my interview with Tracy Selle, I talked about all kinds of tips and tricks for organizing groups, planning group lessons, and how to advertise for summer workshops and camps. As a registration freebie, I also included an editable PDF form that you can use for Camp Registration!

Don’t forget… only a few more hours to take advantage of the 30% off sale! You can still snag both webinars for only $46.90. Tomorrow the price will jump to $67! There is SO much information jam-packed into this webinar. Click the image below to register: