Good Practicing Skills: Often music students get into habit of playing an exercise or study over and over again, first at a slow pace and eventually faster and that is called "practicing"! There is much more to practicing than that. You must learn to hear and sing melodies that are being practiced. You must isolate "problem" (rhythmically or technically) passages. Above all, you must develop a regimen and method of practicing and become acutely sensitive to monitoring progress. This takes time and experimentation and perhaps a little bit of research.

Last but not least: before you even start playing or practicing you need a good warm-up. The warm-up starts out as basic as first relaxing your arms and shoulders, stretching fingers, deep breathing to expand lungs and make sure you have a standing or sitting posture that supports your breathing and does not disrupt it. On that note I'd like to say, "Have fun and practice with common sense".

A successful lesson plan can help a child develop foundation necessary to build important money management skills that they will need through out their lifetime. Understanding basic financial tools, will help students manage their money, stay within budget and problem solve. Timothy Liptrap, a co-author of 68 page lesson plan How to Write Checks states "students, who understand how to budget, spend and manage their money, will be better off than many adults in today's world."

According to Liptrap, Teachers who create their own lessons should "keep lesson plan practical" while teaching conceptual skills. "Each month when a parent sits down to pay bills, they should have their child pull-up a seat to assist and learn. A lesson plan should replicate this experience in classroom by providing practice checks, bank statements, mock invoices and check registers for each student."

Copyright 2003. Timothy Liptrap