I remember using some giant cards I would hold up to teach a song to a group of students. The cards had things like ‘Sing Loud, Sing Soft, Ice-cream Lovers Sing, Stand up to Sing, Sit Down to Sing’ etc each with a different picture.
I decided to make up my own set of giant cards to use with my little violin students so we can concentrate on bowing.
I wouldn’t recommend introducing the cards all at once. Rather one or two at a time. For louds and softs you would need to do a little index finger pressure on the bow training.
Ideas for use:-
- Student to play their favourite string. Hold up appropriate cards for their level of playing.
- If students are learning a particular finger (ie first finger), play those 4 notes and use cards.
- Have the student memorise a short passage of music and hold up appropriate cards.
- Use the stop and go cards to check a student’s sight reading ie hold up the stop sign and the student needs to point to the bar they are up to. You can play something and the student has to hold up the stop card then they point to where you stopped. They always love hearing you play and this gets them involved.
For a copy of the two-to-a-page action cards, click here: Giant Action Cards 2 per page
To print out the giant cards, one page each, click here: Giant Action Cards
