New guitar lesson plans for kids
We've been working hard on creating effective guitar lesson plans for kids. Unlike other students, young kids have special requirements and require extra motivation and incentives to practice. We've tested quite a few different options and developed two new series of guitar lesson plans you can use with your children students.
In-build incentives in our guitar lesson plans for kids
From our testing we've found that including a simple incentive within the actual lesson plan dramatically improves the student's motivation, focus and effort. Each guitar lesson plan we develop for children will use some form of incentive to maximize this effect. One of the most effective inbuilt incentives we have developed is the reward that students can color in drawings on the lesson plan after they successfully learn the songs.
This means the student has an extra incentive to practice hard and learn the entire song. Instead of learning it for a bit, getting bored and moving on to the next song, they will have an extra reason to keep practicing. After the student learns the entire song and receives their reward (the coloring in), we've found that the benefits continue. We've found that students 'take ownership' of the song and their colored in lesson plans. They continue to practice the song and every time they see their colored in work, it reminds them of the benefits of practice.
While the inbuilt incentives we have developed in our guitar lesson plans may seem simple, they're very effective. We're constantly testing out different variations and forms of incentives and you will see more of these in future lesson plans.
The KID guitar lesson plans
The KID guitar lesson plans will focus on worksheets and trackers you can use to get your student involved with guitar. They will be very interactive and use inbuilt incentives to encourage the students to practice as mentioned above. Here's the first resource in this series and more are being worked on right now.
KID-01 Practice Chart
This simple resource will help you develop a daily practice habit in your students. The resource covers five weeks of practice and uses effective incentives after each week so you can see how the student is tracking. The great thing with using this resource is that after the first five weeks, the student will have developed their daily practicing habit so much they will continue to practice without any extra incentives. Of course every student is different but we've tested this with many children and found it very effective.
The KDS guitar lesson plans
The KDS series of guitar lesson plans will focus on simple children's songs. Each song will teach the student how to play the single note melody while gently incorporating more difficult concepts such as partial chords, rests, muted hits, etc. Each song displays the backing chords so you can accompany the student. As mentioned above, the inbuilt incentives in each guitar lesson plan will encourage the student to practice on their own. The simple rewards reinforce good behavior and develop good habits.
KDS-01 Baa Baa Black Sheep
KDS-02 Eensy Weensy Spider
KDS-03 It's Raining, It's Pouring
KDS-04 If You're Happy And You Know It
More songs will be added to the Lesson Materials Section over this and future months as we develop more effective incentives and layouts.