Last Saturday my studio had the first group class of the year 2024. The spirit was high, all the parents greeted each other like old friends and all the students were eager to exchange what fun thing they did during the holidays.
As a teacher, I was aware that with lots of fun events each student family shared with each other, their practice routine and even the very basic set ups might have gotten rusty. So with a paper cup in my hand, I came up with this game for my pre-twinkle to book 4 Multi-Level-Group class. We had so much fun!!
Even though the focus on distinguishing the left and right hand is generally for the very beginners, even the higher level students enjoyed it so much that they had a hard time moving on to the next game!
But here I just wanted to point out again a major obstacle many novice teachers struggle with- making beginning students follow the instruction smoothly without the confusion of their Right/Left orientation. Therefore providing many warm-up activities to reinforce it is the foundation of cello learning (or any string instruments).
After playing a game such as the one I embedded here from my Instagram Reel, I will go on to do some miming gestures and ask the students to copy me with opposite left/right so that when I am moving my right hand, they do the same with their right hand, not the left hand. The sillier the gestures are, the merrier. Have a pre-twinkle student volunteer to be the leader would be a great empowering moment and truly makes a group class a multi-level-group class learning.