3 Unique Ways To Use Our Composer Trading Cards And… Another Set!

Are your kids going crazy for our Composer Trading Cards? If so, they’ll be excited to know we have another set that they can add to their collections. The cards are a great tool for injecting a bit of music history into your piano lessons in a way that is approachable for young children.

And while collecting the cards is a blast, using them as activity starters is even more valuable. In today’s post we’re sharing three fun ways that you can expand your music history teaching with our Composer Trading Cards.

Composer Trading Cards… Music History Made Fun!

We’ve previously released 10 different Composer Trading Cards. If your budding music history buffs have been keeping up with their collections they will now have likely filled an entire trading card page (we recommend using a plastic trading card page protector in their piano binder as a way to store and collect these cards as in the photo below).

The last time we released a set of cards, we also shared instructions for a Composer Trading Card game called Snap The Composer. Check that out if you haven’t already, and then come back to today’s post to try out three more activities and to download our newest set (see instructions at the bottom of the post).

1. Composer Hide and Seek: Hide three different Composer Trading Cards in your studio or waiting area. Choose one of the composers to be “It”. Next, email three clues to your students that will enable them (with a small bit of research) to determine which composer they will be searching for when they come to piano lessons. Then, when they return to your studio, instruct them to find the Composer Trading Card displaying the composer who is “It”. Finally, feature students who successfully located the correct composer on a “Composer Hide and Seek” social media post (as always… obtain all necessary permissions when sharing images of your students).
2. Name That Tune: Give your piano students four different Composer Trading Cards. Discuss the composers and their respective eras, musical styles, famous pieces and influences. Next, using Youtube or your own music collection, play a short snippet of music by one of the four different composers. Instruct your students to hold up the Composer Card containing the image of the person who composed the musical excerpt. Have your students justify their selections using language acquired from the original discussion of musical eras, styles and influences. Continue playing until music from all four composers has been played.
3. Speech Bubble Practice Reminders: If your students are currently practicing a piece by one of the composers in their Composer Trading Card collections, have them tape the correct Composer Card onto their music. Next, ask your students, “What do you think (name) would want you to work on this week?” Record their answers inside a “speech bubble” beside the card (as though the composer is speaking directly to your students).

Where To Find Today’s Composer Cards

As you know from previous posts, to make many of the resources we share on the Teach Piano Today blog easier to find, and to correlate them with our new WunderKeys Primer and Level 1 books that we’ll be releasing later this year, we’re putting them up on WunderKeys.com.

Today’s Composer Trading Cards have been added to the Growing With WunderKeys Toolkit. Print them double-sided on card stock and start your students off on a collecting mission!