We had a great check in today, with many teaching opportunities. When the kids described their “musical moments” of the past week, they talked about how certain genres make them feel (i.e., hip hop makes them feel like dancing), and how certain sounds on the keyboard made them feel. This segued perfectly into listening activities about major and minor chords/scales, and a rhythm exercise where we practiced different subdivisions of beats and learned the difference between tempo and rhythm. Then we put those rhythms into practice with our major scale, adding a new pattern so that the kids could get accustomed to crossing over their thumbs while playing up the scale. They were focused and polite the whole way through, raising their hands and eager to ask questions. I couldn’t ask for better students!