With all the great Music Kids Love® you probably already own, it might be difficult to know in what order to teach each piece in a series. But our new Piano Teaching Guides can help you use your music more effectively, use it more often, and know ahead of time what challenges students will face in each particular piece or set of pieces.
Even if you don’t own all the pieces, the new teaching guides for the Little Fuzzies series, Short Sheets®, and Tune Up Tunes® will help you decide what level students will benefit most from the pieces, and you can always purchase the pieces you want based on the information in the free piano teaching guide!
The Little Fuzzies Teaching Guide:
The Little Fuzzies are one of our most popular elementary series, with all kinds of fun ideas for using the Fuzzies to inspire excellent music-making! The Little Fuzzies, with their zany and silly adventures, give opportunities for students to move around the piano, learn how to play patterns, and encourage them to be brave with accidentals and music symbols like first and second endings. You can use our new, free piano teaching guide for the Little Fuzzies series in the following ways:
- As a (relative) level guide with teaching tips: Since all of the Little Fuzzies pieces are Elementary to Late Elementary level, it’s wonderful to know characteristics about a piece, plus helpful teaching advice like this: “At the end, you’ll hear the return of that familiar rhythmic motive – again, please feel free to teach this by rote!”
- As your personal catalog: There’s extra space on these pages for writing. You can print out a copy (or do this digitally) and make a small column where you can check off if you own the piece or not. You can also store copies of your Little Fuzzies pieces right after the catalog in your teaching binder!
- A place to jot down your ideas: You can write your own teaching thoughts in the margins for the pieces you already own, or when you plan to purchase others.
- As a way to navigate the website: Each piece is linked, and the last page lists the bundles that are currently available!
Download the Little Fuzzies piano teaching guide for free here.
Short Sheets® Piano Teaching Guide
If you’re new to Short Sheets®, you may not know that one set of the Short Sheets® series has 3 distinct piano pieces! These quick pieces are for busy students, easy wins, 30 and 40 piece challenges, and more. Short Sheets® range from Early Elementary black key pieces all the way up to Late Intermediate pieces, and are appropriate for kids, teens, and adults.
The Short Sheets® Teaching Guide is useful for not only knowing the leveled order of pieces, but can also be used for:
- Easy Organization: It’s so helpful to have a guide telling me all the pieces in a series, with suggested levels, theme, contents, and concepts covered!
- A Quick Reference: See what pieces you own and what pieces you might want to purchase, all in one place!
- Review Pieces and Quick Wins: From black keys, to playing pieces in key signatures, students won’t know they’re reviewing concepts – because the lyrics and pieces are so great!
- Quick Favorites: From opportunities for memorization in piano lessons, to delightful success for a beginning student or transfer student, Short Sheets® are often seasonal or relating to what kids love best, whether it’s dinosaurs, ninjas, or donuts!
- Ways to save you time: Like all the guides, the Short Sheets® piano teaching guide is filled with links for pieces and bundles, to save you time.
Tune Up Tunes® Piano Teaching Guide
Tune Up Tunes® are much like Short Sheets®: each set gives you 3 short pieces. The Tune Up Tunes® Piano Teaching Guide is similar, but what makes this series unique is that the pieces focus on notoriously tricky concepts, and improve specific skills! Use the guide to:
- Find Tune Up Concepts: They’re listed in bold so you know what concept is the focus.
- See a comprehensive list: See the whole series in one place, from level to concepts covered, with hyperlinks and bundles, too.
- Have a fun way to strengthen weaknesses: Get a feel for the fun covers and themes that will help your students strengthen their weaknesses, from kids all the way up to adults.
How do I find other series and their recommended teaching order?
The free and comprehensive Student Solutions Catalog is a great way to find everything you’re looking for.
This is not just a traditional “catalog.” This catalog helps you find pieces that work on specific skills!
For example, if you are looking for pieces that work on finger dexterity – there’s a page of song suggestions for that. What about left-hand development? We have that too. Bass clef for both hands, playing hands together, out-of-position playing, duets, recital pieces, jazz, holiday pieces – we have so many categories. And each piece mentioned is hyperlinked, so just click on the picture and you’ll be taken right to the product page!
The Student Solutions Catalog is updated and re-released every autumn.
If you ever feel stuck navigating the website, just know that we see every email that comes to [email protected]. Looking for a flashy solo for an intermediate student? Or a relaxing, meditative piece for a beginning adult? Just send us a quick email. We would love to help you find what you need.
Have you used the free Piano Teaching Guides yet? We’d love to hear your ideas or comments below!
