Another fantastic practice tool that many people choose to forego are flashcards. It only takes a few minutes to teach kids how to use them, but it goes a long way in helping them to learn independently.
You can step it up by making it a timed game, or a race. The student pulls a card and then they have to run to the piano as fast as they can, play the correct note, and run back. Then they check- if they get it right they move the card to a discard pile, if they get it wrong it goes on the bottom of the stack. Flashcards go a long way in making note reading easy, and when note reading and other musical concepts become easy students will enjoy playing so much more!
At Encore Music we use a couple different kinds of flashcards, depending on the age of the child. Music for Little Mozarts has wonderful large print flashcards for 3-6 year olds, and for 7 and up we use a set of Alfred cards. But sometimes I find that students prefer to make their own- it's a really great art activity that doesn't feel like practice.
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