Memorable piano teaching activities are the most beneficial teaching activities. And for something to be memorable it has to be new and novel.
When kids come to a piano lesson they expect to sit at the piano bench, engage in some warm-ups, and play through a method book. What they do not expect is to be handed a pancake flipper, a frying pan, and some eggs… which is why today’s activity is a learning experience they won’t forget.
Today’s piano teaching activity can be prepped in seconds using materials from your kitchen. You’ll be serving up fun while helping your young, beginning students quickly recognize the differences in directional movement between repeating notes, stepping notes and skipping notes.
Serving Up Fun With Steps and Skips
When you teach piano to little kids, engaging their brains away from the bench is essential. Short breaks from the piano that teach theory or rhythm concepts continue the learning while resetting your students’ attention spans.
Today’s Serving Up Fun piano activity is an easy-to-implement bench break that your little kiddos will love. All you need is a frying pan, three plates, and a flipper.
To prepare for the activity, print out our “Serving Up Fun” printable found here. This printable contains six “fried egg” images, each containing either an image of Middle C, D or E. Cut out the egg shapes and place them “over easy” in a frying pan (yolk side down). Place the three plates (one labeled Step, one labeled Skip, one labeled Repeat) around the frying pan.
How To Play “Serving Up Fun”
This activity is a simple sorting game that reinforces your student’s ability to identify notes that step, notes that skip, and notes that repeat.
To begin, give your student a flipper and have him sit in front of the frying pan. Instruct your piano student to use the flipper to turn over any two eggs. When the notes on the two eggs have been revealed, ask your student to compare the two notes and determine if they represent repeating notes, stepping notes or skipping notes. Once identified, have your student place the two eggs onto the corresponding plate.
Your student can continue playing until all 6 eggs are removed from the frying pan and placed onto an appropriate plate (note: some plates may be left empty). When all eggs have been served, mix them up, place them in the frying pan and play again!
Hands-On Made Simple!
If you loved this post then you’ll also enjoy our “Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy” game and our “Pond Hopping” game – both require just a few simple supplies.
And… if your piano students leave your studio excitedly chattering about the game you played then you’ll want to check out our HUGE library of free resources at WunderKeys.com. Click here for free access.
Michelle says
This will make a great summer lesson activity! We can pretend we’re camping!
Andrea says
Great idea, Michelle! 🙂 Have fun!
Linda says
I cannot wait to use this in August! The kids will love it. Thank you!
Andrea says
You’re most welcome, Linda! Enjoy 🙂
María Laura says
Thank you so much!! My students will love this game!! 😀 The only problem I personally encounter with this game is that after playing this… I will become very hungry! Ha ha!!
Thank you for all this amazing games, as well as the games from the game club, that my students and I enjoy every class! Since I read this blog my classes has become much more amusing and dinamic!
Andrea says
Thrilled to hear it Maria Laura 🙂
Etelka says
These and many of your games are fantastic and really fun! But my main issue is that they’re always in C major. I’m wondering if it’s possible to ever do them in other keys (eg. the method I use teaches C and D majors at the same time, but would love to see these available in other keys that begin on a white key). Anyway, thanks for all the awesome games, they have really livened up my lessons recently!
Andrea says
Hi Etelka – thanks for the comment and I’m so glad you enjoy our games! Our games from PianoGameClub are in a variety of keys. This free game idea in particular is in C as most beginning students first learn about steps and skips in the context of the key of C. We wanted it to be widely-useable for most methods and so we chose C position for this one 🙂
Andrea Bentz says
My students really enjoyed this game! Flipping the eggs was a really good chance to talk about/introduce wrist rotation too; my little ones often have a hard time with that concept (we have turned door knobs a lot – it was great to have a different way to work on it)! The print on the eggs is rather small, so we used a piece of staff paper to copy down the notes and compare.
Andrea says
So glad they enjoyed it!