The idea of hosting a piano camp for young children ages (5-6 yrs) was birthed after I taught there. It was a new challenge for me. I have taught class piano to college students for many years and individual piano lessons to young children. I have also worked as a tester for Success for All and had to work with some kindergarteners on English reading. Even with all this experience, I had never attempted teaching piano to young children in a group. I was a little nervous of accepting the assignment but the camp director was confident I could handle it. My mother runs a private kindergarten next to my home in Malaysia. She has 250 students ages 4-6 daily. I have observed her and her teaching staff for most of my life. She started the business when I was a toddler. There have been a few times when I have taught some singing there. Armed with these experiences and observations, I tackled the challenge of Kinderpiano. I knew I would have 2 classes of about 8 students each so I insisted on an assistant. :)
At the end of the camp, the students would also present in a concert. We started off the week with some singing and playing with music alphabet blocks. We learned a few songs by rote and we played together with a CD accompaniment. Children love making sounds on the piano, more aptly described as "banging very loudly" on the keys, so we had one particular piece that allowed them to do just that. We did have a student who cried every morning but that is to be expected. As the class went on with the activities, he later joined in. By Friday, he was good and looked forward to class.
Since then, I have collected a lot more materials and game ideas for my studio. Looks like the animals on my piano are also ready to go on an adventure. I look forward to bringing this syllabus to the Oklahoma City area with my friend and colleague, Miss Vivi Vivi.
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