Getting your child prepared for their piano lessons to make easy piano for kids?
We’ve all been there; you’ve got a commitment for your child and it seems like everything is working against you to get them ready and to your commitment. What if we could say we could make easy piano for kids? Now, I don’t think we can do that exactly (I really wish we could) but we are here today to help provide you with some tips to help your child get prepared for piano lessons and hopefully make things a bit easier for everyone involved.
We love to make piano fun; we focus on fun kids' songs for your child to learn to help engage them and encourage them to continue learning. Some songs can include twinkle twinkle little star, itsy bitsy spider, happy birthday, old macdonald, jingle bells, and more! Our main goal is to help keep your child engaged and having fun while learning. Below are a couple of ways to help get your child ready for the lessons so they’re in a great space to learn to play the piano.
Put the lesson on THE calendar
One of our first times is taking the time to ensure your child is aware when lessons happen. If you have a family calendar or a shared space with events are scheduled add your child’s piano lessons into that and ensure they can access this scheduling tool. We find that children are more excited and eager for their lessons when they aren’t surprised when their piano teacher comes to their door for a lesson.
We know life gets busy with kids, school, work, meal prep, and other activities! Placing this onto the calendar helps with reminding your child visually of when their lessons will be to help you with helping them get prepared for lessons. You can even add to the calendar different goals or a piano song they want to learn to help get them excited for their next lesson.
Plan time for them to practice throughout the week.
This tip can be stressful at first, however, it’s important to help with creating less stress for the practice and lessons. We know life is busy and many parents/ caregivers stress about how much their children need to practice.
We encourage setting up a schedule where the child can sit down a few times a week to play the piano and practice playing music and learning music theory such as notes. Even if this time is just a couple of minutes it really does help prepare for the lessons. We recommend at minimum trying to find 5-10 minutes a couple of times a week. You can set a timer for the desired practice time to help your child understand when practice is done.
Your child’s piano teacher will outline specific recommendations for your child and their learning needs at the end of each lesson.
We’ve had a couple of families have success with having incentives or rewards after practice, such as no screen time until piano practice is done. As well children crave and love routine, so trying to pick a time or date that can be set up each day or a couple of times of a week is ideal. Ideally, we encourage your child to be in a good and positive mood when entering practice.
Give them a healthy snack or meal before the lesson
We’ve all tried to work when we're hungry, I can’t be the only one who was not a fan of this! Well, children are similar, making sure your child has a snack or meal before their lesson is important! When we’re hungry this can lead to distraction, mood swings, and an inability to focus. All things we’d not encourage for a piano lesson learning environment.
So, before your child’s lesson ensure they are provided with a snack or have had a meal so they are able to focus on the task at hand of learning to play the piano. We’ve found that students tend to be in a much better mood when their bellies are full!
Looking for some suggestions of foods – berries, oranges, dark chocolate, nuts, cut-up vegetables, a sandwich, scrambled/poached eggs, pasta, rice, or a cheese & meat tray.