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A Trash To Treasure Composing Activity! Have Fun and Clean Out Your Junk Drawer…

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I’m going to bare my soul and share the most embarrassing part of my entire house.

I have a junk drawer.  And it contains a frustrating jam-the-drawer-shut collection of everything from hair elastics to plastic animal toys to rulers to… (ugh so embarrassing)… 5 empty tape dispensers.

I was in a gut-it-out mood the other day (mainly because my poor unsuspecting sister happened to open “The Drawer” the other day and quickly shut it in fear).  It was time to clean it out.

But then my mind drifted to piano teaching again as I looked at the crazy assortment of goodies that emerged from that drawer. And so today we bring you a fabulously fun composing activity that will not only have you cleaning out “The Junk Drawer” in your own home… but will also have your piano kids creating some wildly imaginative pieces.

Trash to Treasure Composing 101

This activity can be done with just a few minutes of prep (depending on the state of your drawer I suppose!) and is immediately engaging for piano kids of all ages.

You will need:

  • 4 paper lunch bags (or small gift bags – just nothing see-through)
  • A random assortment of 16 small “treasures” (these can be anything… coins, office supplies, small toys)
  • Our Trash To Treasure Composing Worksheets (free download here because we love ya!)
  • A sharpie (number each paper bag 1 through 4)
  • A piano student (and if you don’t have one of those we can help with that!)

How it Works

Put a variety of 4 small “treasures” that you’ve collected from your junk drawer into each paper bag.  The mystery bags should be closed and waiting for your piano students before lessons begin.

Have your students randomly select a mystery bag. This bag then becomes their Trash to Treasure Composing Kit.

Follow along on the Trash to Treasure Composing Worksheet to see how these treasures can become a tune!

Compose Often and With Imagination

Giving kids ownership over their own learning is important – and nothing accomplishes this quite so nicely as composing. Creating ones own music is an intensely satisfying experience.  Your kids will be motivated to practice, excited about their abilities and even more committed to learning the piano.

My teacher NEVER taught me to compose because I don’t think she knew where to start! If you’re in the same boat then you need our 12 easy-to-follow composing lessons that will leave you and your kids laughing out loud as you create 12 original compositions.

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18 Responses to A Trash To Treasure Composing Activity! Have Fun and Clean Out Your Junk Drawer…

  2. This is brilliant! I am also an Orff teacher and this activity for composition can easily be used in an Orff class. If I didn’t know better,
    I would think that you have had some Orff training. Have you?
    Thanks for the great tips I am learning for my piano students.
    They fit so nicely with my style of teaching.

    Reply

    • Hi Kathy – no I haven’t 🙂 But I have spent years finding ways to make composing more accessible to kids. Glad you can use it with your Orff students!

      Reply

    • Cool! I can’t wait to hear what the piece title is called. Yesterday a masterpiece was created called “Mini Kleenex package”. That’s got to be a world-first 😉

      Reply

  5. Ooooooo. Aaaaaaaah. wAy cOoL. Thank you for sharing. 🙂 I can’t wait to share it with the students. They will surely love this. I can’t wait to see everyone’s light bulbs light up with this easy to use worksheet. Yippeeee! Thank you again.

    Reply

  8. I do two Chords and Creativity group classes. What do we love to do? Improvise! Compose! What do we hate to do? Notate. This is going to make the notation fun and will better demonstrate it’s value (and make it easier) than anything I could have done. Thanks so much! Can’t wait to use it. My only problem: WHICH drawer that needs to get cleaned out do I use?

    Reply

    • Ha ha… yes that is the question Kristi! I actually lied in this post. I have TWO junk drawers. Both equally horrific. But now… both stuffed with “composing tools”. Makes me feel better to look at them that way 😉

      Reply

  9. Thank you for sharing this. It definitely looks like a fun and exciting way to develop this important skill, especially with “reluctant” composers. Just wondered if there was any way you could remove the rests from the bars on the worksheet so they just show as empty bars? Thank you.

    Reply

    • I am so excited to see this. My students love Muttzart and Ratmaninoff. They are going to be so excited for a new composing activity! But I did have the same question as Ann: any chance you could remove the rests from each measure? Thanks!

      Reply

  10. This is absolutely fantastic!!!! I am so excited to use this with all of my students – beginners on up!

    Just one question – could you possibly remove the whole rests on the last page? I would appreciate it – thank you sooooooooo much!!!!

    Reply

  12. Hi, there,
    Andrea, thank you so much for generously sharing your creativity and success w/the likes of other teachers, such as myself. I was following another post on what to do during the first lesson (including composing) which led me to this post. Im a bit embarrassed to say I dont understand how to turn the treasures into composing tools. The “Composing Worksheet” link is turning up the same sheet as the “Free Download” one; i wonder if Im missing something?

    Reply

    • Hi Caroline – thank you for mentioning this! The links were a bit messed up somehow – a small bug I’ve now fixed. The first link takes you to the worksheet you can print and use with your students. The second one now takes you to the instruction booklet 🙂

      Reply

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