If you’ve ever seen me sew, paint, draw, scrapbook or do really anything crafty you’d understand that my hands are better suited to the piano keys. My unique combo of a total lack of spacial awareness and intense perfectionism make crafting nothing but insanely frustrating to me. I stick to the musical side of the arts.
So my 3 “crafty” piano ideas are actually crafty in terms of being shrewd rather than scrapbook-y. Feel free to pin these ideas to the “She can’t DIY” board on your Pinterest page and then put down your scissors and join me in being crafty… without all the glue and glitter.
1. How To Generate Waiting Room Word-of-Mouth
If you’re a piano teacher you know that word of mouth is a piano teacher’s amigo. You want people to be talking about you frequently. If you’re a piano teacher you also know that siblings who sit unattended in your waiting area need something productive to do. Enter Crafty Idea Numero Uno…
Create a weekly coloring contest where your piano students in waiting are given some paper and (I highly recommend washable) markers. Choose a theme for each week such as “Why I love to play the piano”, “My Favorite Piece Makes Me Think Of…”. “Piano Lessons Are Awesome Because…” etc.
The crafty part comes here (remember shrewd crafty, not crafty crafty)… post these creations in your waiting area for 2 weeks before determining a winner and bestowing a cool prize. Did you see what you just did there? You just displayed some seriously awesome testimonials to your studio parents who happen to be a captive audience for 2 weeks straight. They have nothing better to do while waiting than to read about how much Sarah, Noelle, Arwyn, Draysen and Hehley love their piano lessons. This perpetuates the perception that your studio is full of adoring fans (which, of course, it is!)
2. Inspiring Peer-led Piano Practice
For those of you who are happily using our “Shhh…Your Piano Teacher Thinks This is Practice” book you’ll already have a good idea of how to teach piano practice in a fun and innovative way. A fabulous take-off of this is to have your students who are familiar with this book come up with their own practice activity in the same format. Help each student to come up with a wild, wacky, awesome, fun and creative activity and then have them take it home to illustrate it. The following week they return it, you photocopy it, and then it gets distributed among all of your piano students.
How cool will it be for your piano kids to have Matthew’s activity to complete on Monday, Braiden’s on Tuesday, Lucy’s on Wednesday etc. etc.?! You can bet your entire studio will be practicing like crazy! Crafty crafty….
3. Student Share-ables
If you’re big into recognizing student achievements like I am then this crafty idea will be easy for you to implement. If you don’t already have regular studio awards you may want to begin! Awards such as “Student of the Week”, “Composer of the Month”, “Video Star Friday” etc. are easy to implement in your studio but provide an incentive and a goal for your piano students.
But don’t stop there!
Turn these student achievements into social media share-ables and watch your word of mouth spread on the world wide web. By using video (with permission) and attractive photo editing (also with permission) you can easily create a very share-able item on your piano studio’s blog or Facebook page. In this manner piano student awards are a gift that keep on giving… to both you and the student!
Think outside the box when coming up with new ideas for your piano teaching studio… and stay tuned for an actual piano teaching craft post coming later on this week… it involves cutting and pasting and maybe even some glitter glue. My palms are starting to sweat.
Barbara says
You ARE crafty! I’m really lovin’ #1 since I teach in a Community Center, so if I get permission to display these items not only do my students’ parents get to see them but so do OTHER parents and potential students! Thanks so much for the fabulously crafty idea! (Oh, oh…the others are great too, I’m just a little partial to that #1:)
Andrea says
Hi Barbara – that’s EXCELLENT! What great exposure that will be… you crafty teacher you 😉
Milla Gotlib says
Thank you for your wonderful newsletter, it opens new horizon for me each time. Where do you order the neat games you posted on P interest?
Andrea says
Hi Milla – most of the games we’ve posted on Pinterest are our own creations and we offer them for free on our website. Check out our piano game section of our blog here: https://www.teachpianotoday.com/category/piano-teaching-games/
Milla Gotlib says
What company makes that rhythm dominoes and wall staff with velcro ball?I would like to order those. Thanks for your help.