Piano Teaching Material for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is around the corner and it reminds me of how excited I used to get when I was in elementary school. I skipped Kindergarten, so I was in first grade when I experienced getting Valentine cards from my classmates. I was so happy and proud as I took my bag full of cards to the bus. But I dropped them just as I was getting on the bus, and I watched in dismay as a gust of wind blew them away as I watched them float across the school yard. I was  devastated. It was as bad as the previous Halloween when I dropped my bag of candy and couldn’t find all of it in the dark. I see a pattern here. Maybe I should write a song about it!

Here are the of Valentine themed material currently in the store. There are two bundles of one page elementary songs, most of which I composed. The prereading bundle is popular with teachers who just started a student at the first of the year. In fact, two of the little rhymes can be used at the very first lesson. If you’ve ever seen my pre-reading music, I try to make it easy for young children by using a lot of color coding for the hands and finger numbers. The left hand is colored blue to keep the students on track.  The Elementary Valentine on-the staff bundle is also for beginners, but there are real notes in five-finger patterns divided between the hands. Both bundles have my cheery, positive lyrics that I hope bring some joy to children.

There are also three different bundles of activity sheets that have colorful art. Two of them I made recently.  Valentine Funsheets for Beginners helps with finger numbers, beginning rhythms, notes, symbols, and even steps and skips on the piano keys.  The Gnome’s Valentine Funsheets contains ten activities for  late elementary to early intermediate, and the Valentine Funsheets are elementary level. These are quality, educational theory pages and each page has a specific music theory objective. The order pages have more information.

I’ve also made some games with a Valentine theme. Hearts and Clover is a note reading game that is useful for both Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s Day! It also has cards with only the piano keys so it can be used with beginners.
Steal a Heart is a very fun game for older high school and middle school groups. I made it so that my older students could get to know each other and also practice reading ledger lines. The ledger line cards can be removed so the game can be played with younger students. Students can sit on the floor and then they will draw cards steal cards from other players or be instructed to give cards away. My students thought it was my best game. It’s lots of fun if you have a valentine’s group lesson or theory class.

Valentine Rhythm Hunt is a valentine version of the familiar hide and seek rhythm note game that young students absolutely love. It’s also one of the best ways for beginners to learn rhythm note names.

Rhythm Heart Beats is not a game, but it is a wonderful activity to learn how to make rhythmic dictation easy for students. It doesn’t have to be something they dread. If you’ve never done dictation in lessons, there are three pages of detailed instructions will get you going with this.

Finally, I made two different Valentine cards that contain music word game activities. All you have to do is print and fold. The valentine fox is folded in half, and the  kitty valentine is folded twice and has an envelope. Envelopes for the half fold card are easy to find.

I hope Valentine’s Day is fun for you and your students!