Like this:

I see 55 different students for private music lessons each week, and many of them are still at a young enough age that they’re silly.  Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not so much.  I just have to share a sample of the moments I get to experience daily:

- I give students a sticker for each song they pass, and I let them choose from one of two sticker sheets (this one has smiley faces, or circus animals, or stars, etc.).  This week, I happened to have a sticker sheet with rainbows in various designs, as well as a sticker sheet with sports balls on it.  My first student of the day, a 5-year-old boy, would barely even touch the rainbow sheet.  SPORTS ONLY for him.  A couple of students later, another 5-year-old boy saw the sticker choices and said, “I love rainbow hearts!!”

- One of my students this week was convinced that I kept messing up my violin bow direction, because we weren’t matching each other as we played through the piece together.  She kept saying, “I think you changed the bowing in that measure!”  Um, it wasn’t me.  :)

- I have a pre-school aged student who is not only learning how to play the piano during our lessons, but we’re working on life skills including: right hand vs. left hand, how to write the numbers 1-5, how to sit on a piano bench without sliding off, and more.  Every day is an adventure with her!

- One of my students was unpacking her instrument at the beginning of the lesson, and she said, “You always wear outfits that are part of a theme!”  I asked her what she meant, and she said, “Your clothes and your earrings always match!”

- Before our lesson began, one of my little boy students was telling me that he liked to play video games.  I mentioned to him that I have two brothers who also like to play video games.  At the very end of the lesson, as he was packing up his books, he said, “What video games do your brothers like to play?”  I’m pretty sure he was thinking about that during our entire lesson!

- After a job well done on one of her piano pieces, I said to my student, “Great job! Would you like a sticker?”  She said, “I don’t know… what’s in it for me?”  And then I said, “…A sticker?…”  (She’s one of those funny-on-purpose students, by the way.)

- In the piano method books I teach from, there are certain technique exercises the students must do where they play a pattern, then move their hand down to a lower position, then play the pattern again, then move their hand down again, etc.  One of my younger students was doing this, but she was not only moving her hand, she was scooting her whole body down as well.  I was about to interrupt her and tell her it wasn’t necessary to scoot herself, when she scooted right off the edge of the bench.  (She was fine.)

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