6 Ways to Creatively Use Dice to Gamify Piano Lessons
If you listened to this podcast episode, then you know that when I was asked what I believed to be a staple in every new piano teacher's studio, I gave an answer least expected--purchase pair of game dice!
Hands down, dice is one of the BEST & CHEAPEST ways to gamify your piano lessons. Here are 6 ways you can creatively use dice to gamify your piano lessons in your next lesson.
Let the dice run the lesson
In my lessons, we use a notebook to notate assignments that we worked on in class and take-home assignments. Everything gets written in the notebook! Usually there's at least 4 different assignments or activities written down, so this works out really well with dice.
Instead of just going down the line of assignments, I let the student roll the dice to determine which assignment/activity we do next in the lesson. I LOVE giving students power in the lesson, and this is the perfect way to give them a healthy amount of power as well as make the lesson more a little more engaging!
Pro tip: If you don't quite have 6 different assignments to choose from, just continue counting at the top of the list again until the rolled number is reached (If you only have 4 assignments and the student rolls a 6, you would naturally land on assignment #2 after counting from the top of the list again).
For the Little Beginners: Finger Number Dice Play!
This is a GREAT first lesson game with those itty-bitty students, but also works with all elementary-aged students! Especially if the student is still learning to count correctly, I will repeat this activity every lesson until they have a good grip on those finger numbers.
To start, the student rolls the rice to find out which finger number we will be focusing on for the activity. Then I give them a simple task to complete with ONLY that finger number. For example, if the student rolls a 2, I ask the student to play all of the black keys bottom-to-top with that finger only.
I like to create variation in the activities to keep their attention, so I have also tried these activity ideas for finger numbers:
play a short song FORTE/PIANO with only that finger number (it could just be a song they are making up on the spot)
play a short song STACCATO/LEGATO with only that finger number (again, it could just be a made up song)
play all the white keys AS FAST AS POSSIBLE with only that finger number
find middle C and play it X amount of times with only that finger number
play all C's bottom-to-top with only that finger number
Sight-Reading Checklist with Dice
Sight-reading is just one of those things that can be hard to teach! Students just love to hit the keys as soon as the book is open to their song. Even when I slow the student down and talk them through things to look for before starting a piece, I can see their eyes just glaze over LOL!
This lead me to create this FREE repertoire roadmap to make it fun and give them a starting point for learning how to sight-read! You can always just walk through the repertoire roadmap from start to finish, but if you're wanting to mix it up throw in the dice with it!
There are 5 different elements that I have included in the repertoire roadmap; so if the student rolls a 3, they will jump right into clapping the rhythm of the song! If the student rolls a six, THEY CHOOSE from the 5!
Polishing a Piece, One Line at a Time
Students HATE repeating a song after they've already played it for you, even if they're nice about it haha! There are several ways that I've learned to combat these moans and groans, but one of my favorites is simply to have them repeat ONE line of the song by rolling the dice.
The number on the dice will tell them which line to repeat and how many times so that you don't have to, and for some reason they usually enjoy this so much that they will want to roll again! Goal achieved.
Memorizing a Piece, One Line at a Time
I actually use the same technique when it comes to memorizing songs too! I never enjoyed memorizing (probably because I was so bad at it), so this is a fun way to ease students into the daunting task of memorizing an entire piece whether it's for recital or exam prep.
Because memorizing takes a bit more time and effort to do the job thoroughly, I only have the student roll the dice once and work that ONE LINE to start memorizing in class with me, and complete the process at home with that particular line.
The last 2 strategies will obviously not work as well as the student gets more advanced and the songs get longer, so it's best to use this for students that have 1-2 pages worth of music to polish or memorize.
Recital/Exam Prep Month with Dice
By the time recital/exam month rolls around, usually BOTH student and teacher are burned out from hearing or playing the same song for so long. So, my students and I will use the dice during the last month of prep work to make repeating the song more enjoyable and decrease burnout during those hunker-down weeks!
The numbers on the dice correlate with a certain action or activity the student (or sometimes teacher!) will have to do during the song. You may choose your own actions, but these are the ones I like to use:
DICE ROLLS (1) - Student plays entire piece standing up
DICE ROLLS (2) - Student and teacher wears a pair of sunglasses, and head bangs to the beat
DICE ROLLS (3) - Teacher plays one of the hands of the piece, while the student plays the other hand--then switch!
DICE ROLLS (4) - Teacher plays entire piece with the student at the same time
DICE ROLLS (5) - Student plays entire piece with a stuffy (stuffed animal) on top of their head! If it falls, the student has to start over!
DICE ROLLS (6) - Teacher gets to be the annoying audience member (i.e wrinkle a bag of chips, fake cough or sneeze at awkward parts of the song) the entire song!
I love being silly with my students, but if that's not your style DON'T WORRY! You can change up how you utilize your dice in the way that best fits your personality and teaching style. Any pair of dice works of course, but my favorite is the larger, foam dice found at the Dollar Tree.
I hope you enjoyed these ideas, and if you want more game ideas, check out my NO PRINTOUT PLAYBOOK!
As always, stay tuned!
(pun unapologetically intended)
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