Teaching Resources (August 2016)

I mention many teaching resources and materials in my blogs and podcasts, and people ask me where to find these. I thought it might be helpful if I gather links to these items in one place, and it helps me too to have a single resource page! I use all of these products and my students enjoy coming up with games with many of these items. Although you are never under any obligation to purchase anything, if you are in the market for any of these items and you use the links provided, the blog and podcast will receive a benefit. There is no additional cost to you to use the links to purchase any of these items.

I hope you have as much fun coming up with creative ways to use these items, or perhaps you come up with new activities and items yourself. Please share with me what your recommendations are! We learn from each other!

These are just a few of my favorites! I will add to this list as time goes on. Have fun!

These are the dotted medium journals that I use for my bullet journal. They come in a variety of cool colors (and prices). Check frequently to find changing prices and deals, along with varying colors. Love these! Note this is the dotted version, but they also come in blank, ruled, and square grid.

These are my favorite erasable pens for a splash of color in my bullet journal. I don't worry about mistakes now because I can erase them! I found out that color makes journaling extra special!

We enjoy making our own puzzle pictures with these!

I use these as "stop" and "go" signs, but you can write anything you like on them.

Always popular with my kiddos! We place a star on one side of this large whiteboard die, which is a free-for-all-who-can-call-out-their-favorite-activity-first option. My students never seem to tire of practicing with this large cube.

More cubes but much smaller in size. We use each color to represent a type of activity, such as red for bow games, yellow for pre-twinkle songs, and green for Twinkle variations. Use your own color coding system!

Always a favorite for parents to spice up practice sessions!

For the teacher, this book is an invaluable resource to turn to time and again for inspiration and ideas! Follow the basic format, and you can instantly create a lesson plan for any group class.

These are excellent resources for timing activities.

Beginning parents find this resource invaluable, especially if the parents are uncertain about reading music. It also includes other pre-twinkle activities that prepare for the book one violin songs.

These are expensive, but they are absolutely the best pencils I have ever owned. I never misplace them or lose sight of them, and I'm excited that my students want to use them. "May I use the'world's greatest pencil?" They ask. Well, of course! What teacher would say "no"?

I am amazed at how much my students need to erase things! So I keep spare erasers to my world's greatest pencil on hand.

I use this pencil sharpener because it is self contained and does not get my purse dirty.

More erasers but white this time.

I can never have enough blank flash cards around. These have holes prepunched, and I provide clasp rings so that each student may have a personalized set of practice cards.

We use these colored rings with the flashcards above.

My students love these buzzers and search the studio to find them. They have four different sounds (ding dong, honk honk, boing, and some other obnoxious noise). My first set was damaged in transit, but Amazon replaced it immediately (within 2 days), and the replacement set is terrific.

We like to use this for group classes. We write the activities or play list that we want to accomplish in class, and my students take turns spinning.

I use this for reading and reading-readiness activities. I provide the worksheets, which we insert into the plastic sleeves. My students use dry erase markers, and these can be reused again and again.

My students enjoy using these to figure out some of the early book 1 Suzuki songs. The whackers form the C major scale, and there is a chromatic extension, but my students play the songs by ear in the new key with little problem.

Always popular, my rhythm stick box is in great demand. This book suggests many activities that are popular for improving dexterity and rhythm awareness.

And here are the rhythm sticks! I cannot over emphasize how popular these "awesome" rhythm sticks are to my students. They look forward to reading activities because of the chance to bang these sticks on a music stand!

This is the book we use for reading activities. We use the rhythm sticks for the side of the page that teaches rhythm.

I use these items for vibrato readiness practice. They can also be used for rhythm activities in group classes.