Create a Mother’s Day Masterpiece With This Composing Activity

One of the best ways to get kids excited about composing is to have them dedicate a personal composition to someone. Kids in my studio write piano pieces for their friends at school, their teachers, their cousins, their hamsters, and… their moms.

So, with Mother’s Day on the horizon, we’re sharing a composing activity you can use this afternoon to help your piano students have a blast with composing while penning a masterpiece for mom 🙂

Mother’s Day Composing For Your Young Piano Students.

Today’s printable can be found here. Here’s how it works:

• Print one copy of our printable for each student.
• Follow along with the instructions on the first page. In Step 1, your students should choose their favorite “mom” sentence.
• In Step 2 your students should speak and clap the sentence selected in Step 1 to find the rhythm. The rhythm should be written inside the Step 2 box (keeping in 4/4 time for simplicity).
• In Step 3, using the C Five-Finger Scale, your students should experiment on the keys to find a matching melody for their rhythm from Step 2.
• In Step 4, your students should combine their rhythm with their melody to create a motive. The motive should be recorded at the bottom of the page.
• Have your students write their motive in each missing measure on Page 2 that is highlighted with a colored box.
• Now it’s time to complete the B Section. On Page 2, you will notice that this section (which should use only the treble staff) has the rhythm already indicated. Your student should choose any notes from the C Five-Finger Scale to match these rhythms, writing their notation choices onto these measures.
• Encourage your students to add dynamics and then practice, practice, practice!
• Finally, send the Mother’s Day Masterpiece home.

Ways To Deliver The Mother’s Day Masterpiece…

Over the years I’ve delivered Mother’s Day compositions to the moms in my studio in a variety of ways, including:

1. Emailing a video message that features their children performing their mother’s day composition with a brief little “Happy Mother’s Day Mommy” intro beforehand.
2. Rolling the composition into a tube and tying it with a beautiful ribbon and a gift tag.
3. Framing it (my local dollar store has $1.25 frames).
4. Placing it inside a 2-pocket folder with the cover page glued to the front along with the piece and a special message from me thanking them for their support.

If your students love this activity, then they’ll go nuts for our composing resource, “The Curious Case of Muttzart and Ratmaninoff”. Perfect for in-lesson use or even as a summer music camp theme, this book has become a fast favorite in studios all over the world! Check it out here.