National Honeybee Awareness Day

Karis, 4 yrs old, sharing her artwork before performing "The Honeybee".
View more photos of our adventure here:  Honeybee Awareness Day gallery.

I enjoy finding creative ways of helping students to connect with their Suzuki piano solos. When Phinizy Swamp Nature Park announced that they would be having a National Honeybee Day, I knew that it would be the perfect event for students practicing The Honeybee solo in Suzuki Piano School Bk.1! They had already been doing research about honeybees in preparation for this piece! Their assignment is posted in our Suzuki Letterboxing blog.  

In the spirit of this event students read books about Honeybees in our studio library and did various honeybee piano theory homework assignments. For piano practice, beginner students worked on learning the piano solo in its original form from the Suzuki Piano School book. Students further along and learning scales were assigned to play The Honeybee in various key signatures. More advanced students composed fun variations to The Honeybee theme. (Jazz, Country & Western, etc.) Students shared their results during performance and theory class on Honeybee Awareness Day. After their performance, we played honeybee themed theory games created by the lovely and talented Georgina Wilson, owner of Greenside Studio in the UK! Please visit her awesome website!! She did such a wonderful job tailoring these games for our event! My students had so much fun playing them, they went additional rounds! 

After performance and theory class, parents worked together in preparing bagged lunches and we eagerly headed for Phinizy! Here are pictures of our adventurous day: Honeybee Awareness Day.