One of the best ways to get kids excited about composing is to have them dedicate a personal composition to someone. Kids in my studio write piano pieces for their friends at school, their teachers, their cousins, their hamsters, and… their moms.
So, with Mother’s Day on the horizon, we’re sharing a composing activity you can use this afternoon to help your piano students have a blast with composing while penning a masterpiece for mom 🙂
Mother’s Day Composing For Your Young Piano Students.
Today’s printable can be found here. Here’s how it works:
- Print one copy of our printable for each student.
- Follow along with the instructions on the first page. In Step 1, your students should choose their favorite “mom” sentence.
- In Step 2 your students should speak and clap the sentence selected in Step 1 to find the rhythm. The rhythm should be written inside the Step 2 box (keeping in 4/4 time for simplicity).
- In Step 3, using the C Five-Finger Scale, your students should experiment on the keys to find a matching melody for their rhythm from Step 2.
- In Step 4, your students should combine their rhythm with their melody to create a motive. The motive should be recorded at the bottom of the page.
- Have your students write their motive in each missing measure on Page 2 that is highlighted with a colored box.
- Now it’s time to complete the B Section. On Page 2, you will notice that this section (which should use only the treble staff) has the rhythm already indicated. Your student should choose any notes from the C Five-Finger Scale to match these rhythms, writing their notation choices onto these measures.
- Encourage your students to add dynamics and then practice, practice, practice!
- Finally, send the Mother’s Day Masterpiece home.
Ways To Deliver The Mother’s Day Masterpiece…
Over the years I’ve delivered Mother’s Day compositions to the moms in my studio in a variety of ways, including:
- Emailing a video message that features their children performing their mother’s day composition with a brief little “Happy Mother’s Day Mommy” intro beforehand.
- Rolling the composition into a tube and tying it with a beautiful ribbon and a gift tag.
- Framing it (my local dollar store has $1.25 frames).
- Placing it inside a 2-pocket folder with the cover page glued to the front along with the piece and a special message from me thanking them for their support.
If your students love this activity, then they’ll go nuts for our composing resource, “The Curious Case of Muttzart and Ratmaninoff”. Perfect for in-lesson use or even as a summer music camp theme, this book has become a fast favorite in studios all over the world! Check it out here.
Megan H. says
This is wonderful! Thanks so much – although I wish that there were a pre-reading version, as well. I can work to adapt it, but seeing as most of my students are at that level now, it would be super handy!
Maria says
Megan….I came up with an idea for our pre-readers! See thread below! 🙂
Andrea says
Hi Megan – as with anything we put out there for free, feel free to adapt it however you need to to make it work for your studio 🙂 From communication with the readers of our blog most of their students are at this level and so we went with on the staff this time – we’ll do pre-reading activities too in the future!
Colleen Branson says
Great ideas here. Have you checked out Susan Paradis’ site. She shares similar ideas, including for pre-readers.
The idea below is great too.
Linda says
This is a lovely, lovely idea. Unfortunately it’s coming too late for my Monday students and it would be really hard to get this done this week with anybody as it requires a bit of advance preparation. I plan to use it next year, though.
Andrea says
Hi Linda – it’s really meant to be an easy “print and use” activity – If you don’t want to deliver it in a fancy way to the moms you can send it home with instructions for the child to decide how they’d like to present it to their Mom – which is sometimes more meaningful. Other than that it takes no prep time at all 🙂 Hopefully you can use it Tuesday through Friday this week.
Colleen Branson says
It doesn’t have to be rolled up and presented in a “fancy” fashion. I just thought about it yesterday and found this one and another one last night. I had 4 young ladies happy to do this in their lesson and take it home to finish and practice. I printed 3 more for tomorrow’s students. Thanks Andrea.
Maria says
You hit it out of the park with this one! Love it! And I came up with an idea for the preschoolers that would work great! You can still use the 1st sheet with them! Have them choose a sentence, clap the rhythm and help them choose some notes in a C position (only 3 notes will do) and write them down. They can even just use one finger! Then improv with them (choose one of the old ones that Andrea has sent us or improv on your own). Record it for Mom and send home the 1st sheet to explain that the improv was “composed” by their little one! Still perfect and I’m sure the parents will love it!
Thanks for the inspiration for this idea Andrea!
Andrea says
Great idea Maria! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Morgan Weisenburger says
I was planning to do something like this too with my WunderKeys students. I’ll just leave the blank measures blank, and they can choose some Finger Friend stickers to put there instead, and then improv that part. Then their mom can play the other part because it’s simple enough. (At least the few wunderkeys students I have have moms that can play basic piano).
Morgan Weisenburger says
Love this! We just had our recital yesterday, so this is perfect timing! Along with whatever that other after-recital resource was that you sent last week…. Hmm… Will you remind me what that was?
Thanks for yet another free resource!!
Morgan Weisenburger says
Oh yes, the Mad Gab!! Omg I love that!!
Andrea says
That one is fun isn’t it?! 🙂
Megan says
What a fantastic idea Andrea! I can’t wait to see just how creative these kids will get with this!!! <3
Andrea says
Thanks Megan! Hope you have fun with it 🙂
Charlotte Upchurch says
Thank you so much for this great idea!
LoriD says
Thanks for the resource. For years my students have composed songs and I have created spiral books for them. Usually it’s one song per student for each book with anywhere from 6 to 12 participants per book. I print up their notes with a computer program so it looks “professional”. Also, I have each composer draw a picture to illustrate their song. The parents buy the book for their kids to cover the cost of the printing and spiral binding. Your resource will help guide them with their composing. And now, I think we will do it just as a summer project. Thanks again!!
Andrea says
This sounds lovely LoriD! 🙂
Jared says
Thank you so much for the great compositional piece for Mother’s Day. I introduced it to my students today, and it was a hit!
Andrea says
Glad to hear it was a hit Jared! 🙂
Iris says
Andrea, thank you for this timely and clever activity! I like how simple it is for my students to do, yet how much they gain from the writing to the playing. It’s been a big hit around here so far this week, and I imagine it will continue to be right through Saturday. The motive the student creates recurs just the right number of times, I find. Then, how each child has decided to deal with measures 9 to 12 has been really interesting. One young man had just learned a C scale, so he ignored the half notes and used a few eighth notes so he could fit it all in. One young lady decided not to write in anything so she could improvise a different lick each time she played it. Others liked the security of the suggested rhythm as a frame work.
Again, I thank you, and all my moms thank you!
Morgan says
So far, I’ve done this with 5 students, and they’ve all LOVED it! Some of them even mentioned, “I can’t wait to see what we get to do for Father’s Day!”
….Oh, crap…
Megan says
Haha! I’ve gotten the same response!
Rhonda says
What an adorable, thoughtful idea! As a mom, I know all moms will love this. I didn’t get this in time for Monday students, but had time to do it with two little girls this week, and they loved it! I’m not very good at this, because between the tune and the melody, it took a lot of time! However, they were so excited and it was totally worth it. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Megan says
Oh my goodness! ALL of my students have absolutely LOVED doing this! They were so excited to go home and practice what they wrote so it would be extra special for their mom! Thank you so much for this awesome printable! This is really inspiring a ton of my students to keep on composing their own pieces!
Ruth Michaelis says
Awesome Sauce!