My students have always loved holiday piano parties and group lessons. I’ve always loved them too, but group lessons are always more work for me so I typically have mixed feelings about them.
But what if you could have an easy holiday piano party with not much work? Over the years, I’ve learned some tips and tricks to make the holiday piano party an especially easy and almost stress-free event.
But I also know that every teacher is different. You might not mind the extra work. You might want to take extra time with your lesson plan, or make special treats for your students.
So I wanted to give you three levels of Holiday Piano Parties that should work for any teacher, no matter what your personality!
How Long Should your Easy Holiday Piano Party Be?
Well that’s obviously up to you, but I’ve found that 45 minutes is just about right. If you have a larger group, you will definitely want it to be longer especially if you are going to do Name That Tune with students playing. For each of these plans, I typically divide the time up in the following approximate way, always realizing that it’s fluid and I need to pay attention to the students and their interest level:
- Icebreaker – 15-20% of the time
- Main activity – 55-60% of the time
- Eating – 25% of the time
Obviously this is very, very flexible and you have to play it by ear! If students seem ready to move on early, do so!
The Easy Holiday Piano Party:
This is a lovely thought isn’t it? To have a party or a group lesson with very little work would be a dream. But in actuality, I think it’s very possible in the following way:
An Icebreaker Game
You can use this icebreaker game that’s completely free. Here’s how to play:
- Print these and cut them out so there is one name/character on each piece of paper.
- As students come in, tape them to the back of each student, telling everyone to keep the name of everyone else’s tag a secret.
- Have student move around the room then and ask each other YES or NO questions. You may need to give examples of this to younger students.
Objective: See how many questions it takes before they can name their character. If they want to guess their characters’ name, that DOES count as a question!
A Playing and Listening Game
This free Name That Holiday Tune does much more than have students name the tune. It asks them to identify the first interval, meter, and more in music they have prepared. This makes an easy holiday piano party much more simple for you!
- Ask each student to be ready to play their prepared solo at the party. (If you have too many students and not enough time, have them only play a smaller section.)
- At the previous lesson or as the student comes in, give the student a few post it notes to cover the title of their piece and tell them to keep their piece a secret.
- Divide the students into teams, making sure that you have equal level representation (especially of your most advanced levels on each team).
- One student from each team will go to the piano to play. Then members of both teams (or members of the other team if you are worried that the player may have told their team the answers to the questions) will try to get as many questions on this Holiday Listening List correct! Even if students see the name of the piece, the other questions will be a challenge.
Keep a tally sheet of the questions answered correctly and the team with the most questions answered correctly wins!
This is a simple game, but a fun way to make sure students are actively listening to their fellow students! The competition element also helps them focus as well.
Eating
I’ve found that no holiday party is complete without snacks! I’ve always had parents bring snacks to the party and thought that was pretty normal. But Amanda told me that she’s never done that and didn’t know of other teachers who did, so maybe it’s not so normal after all!
Now that I’m a parent though, I realize how much of an imposition this can be! But there are some parents who really enjoy and don’t mind being asked to make or bring treats. Just give them plenty of time to consider it! Ask students to bring a favorite snack (or I had some students bring 2-liter bottles of sprite or soft drinks which my students loved!). Then, if you are worried you won’t have enough snacks, have a backup snack that you have purchased just in case. Lofthouse Christmas cookies or Chex party mix are easy to pick up. You don’t have to have much! Just make sure you have plates, napkins and cups for water.
The Somewhat Easy Piano Holiday Party
An Icebreaker Game
See above!
Nutcracker Rhythm Cup Explorations® OR Stinky Stockings
1. Pick just one of the three pieces in Nutcracker Rhythm Cup Explorations®.
I’ve always had mixed levels in my holiday parties. But even the easier level of cup tapping in Nutcracker Rhythm Cup Explorations® are fun for older students. So pick the level that you think will be learnable for your youngest students, but not so easy that your lowest level students will fly right through it.
You can also use Holiday Rhythm Cup Explorations® if you’ve recently used Nutcracker Rhythm Cup Explorations® and need a change!
2. Watch the demo video with the students. (Did you know you have access to demo videos for every song and level in Nutcracker Rhythm Cup Explorations®?). Practice it with them at the slowest tempo, the medium tempo, and then end with the most advanced tempo!
If you have a huge difference in level between your students, send the more advanced students to a different part of the room (or a different room all together) and challenge them to come back with a more difficult level of the cup tapping.
Then, if you end up with 2 levels of students, have them play their version for the other level of students and vice versa. THEN, have them play together with their appropriate level.
3. Practice and Perform
While the levels of Nutcracker Rhythm Cup Explorations® were not necessarily composed to be performed at the same time, it’s still fun to do them together, especially if it’s for fun. Just be sure your lower level of students have small cups (like mini or 10 oz) and your upper level of students have big cups (like 16 oz). This difference in timbre can help the different cup tapping sounds come through in a more interesting way.
4. Send parents a video!
Parents are pretty curious what happens in group lessons, and sending them a video is a great way for them to see what a terrific teacher you are and to help them feel like they are getting a great deal for their money. Of course, this is totally optional, but I’d love to see any videos or images you get of students having fun with our resources! If you do send something, let me know if it’s just for me, or something I can share on social!
Stinky Stockings
Another option that’s even easier is to play is Stinky Stockings, a fun holiday version of our Stinky Sox game! Students toss an old holiday stocking (you will provide this) with the Stinky Stockings cards in it around a circle while you play holiday music. Then, when the music stops, the student with the stocking pulls out and acts on the card.
There are cards about:
- Theory and Christmas riddles
- Playing
- Singing / Finish A Tune Challenge
- Acting
- White elephant cards
- Bonus cards
It’s super fun, especially because you also have holiday music playing in the background! You can also have students take turns providing the holiday music from their recital piece. Students love to be the one that decides when to start and stop!
Alternative Games/Activities
If you’ve done Stinky Stockings several years in a row, here are a few other options:
- Music Minisâ„¢ – There’s a whole post on fun games for using these. Plus, they’ll also help students learn music motives and learn to notice the details more!
- Holiday Tune Flashcards – These are free and help students with sight singing.
Eating
Same as above!
The Not-so-Easy Holiday Piano Party
There’s really no need to write this part of the post, is there? If you really want to do a large amount of work, there’s no end to what you can do! And my guess is that if you want to do a large amount of work it’s because you’ve done it before and love it! So I’m going to leave this kind of party up to you. But here are a bunch of resources you can use to put your own party together:
- Music Minisâ„¢ – There’s a whole post on fun games for using these. Plus, they’ll also help students learn music motives and learn to notice the details more!
- Holiday Tune Flashcards – These are free and help students with sight singing.
- Stinky Stockings – Super fun game that also incorporate “white elephant” cards to keep the learning light!
- Holiday Rhythm Cup Explorations®
- Nutcracker Rhythm Cup Explorations®
- Holiday Who Am I Game – The icebreaker mentioned above
- Holiday Name That Tune
But I’d love to hear what you do!
Do You Have Ideas for an Easy Holiday Piano Party?
However you do your Holiday Party or Holiday Group Lesson, I’d love to hear about it! Please leave a comment and let me other teachers know what you plan to do or what you’ve done in the past! The more ideas, the better it is for all of us!
Send the families out on a Christmas Scavenger hunt within a 2 mile radius (or more) of your house. Prepare a list of lawn decorations ahead of time that they should look for. Give them 30 minutes to see who can find the most. Return back to your house for hot chocolate and cookies in the garage. Bring keyboard outside and students can play background music while everyone has refreshments. Award a nutcracker to the first place winner!
We’re excited to be doing our first in-person Christmas piano party this year! So far, I’ve planned that we’ll play musical chairs, with the person who is “out” being the next to play for us. We’ll also play Christmas Carol Bingo. I’ll fill out an online bingo card set for the pieces I know are coming, and kids can cross them off as they are performed.
I love my Christmas Piano Performance Parties! I am soooooo glad that I decided to do these instead of a Christmas recital. Everyone’s calendars are so crammed and we’re all happy with these parties (aka group lessons). I schedule a party each afternoon for all of the students who usually have lessons that day. Because I have quite a few home school students, I also have a morning party for those students. The students prepare one Christmas song to play for their peers ( only students are invited to these parties) in my living room. We also play Stinky Stockings and have a small sweet treat. I limit the time for the party to one hour which seems to be just the right amount of time. Oh! And I invite the parent of the student most likely to need extra “supervision” to be the adult helper for the party. 🙂 This has worked out great.