Dictating with Rhythm Monsters

I'm excited to try out these new manipulatives for some rhythm dictation practice at our Halloween Group Lesson today.

I found this fun idea on pinterest at the yellowbrickroad blog and adapted it to add a greater variety of  rhythms for beginning and more advanced students.

Bug Dance: Teaching Left and Right Through Movement

Young piano students often have difficulty remembering how to distinguish Left from Right. This dance/rote piece combines the concepts of left/right, up/down, steps/skips and feeling the beat all into fun activity. When I checked out "Bug Dance"  (by Stuart J Murphy) from my local library for my preschooler this week, my piano teacher wheels started churning.  This engaging MathStart Book introduces the concept of left and right as coach caterpillar teaches his gym class of bugs a new dance with these simple steps (which you can see in the preview on amazon.com):
Two steps to the Left.
(E,             D,      C, )
(Step-        ping   Down)