Over the years I’ve come across several different printables for young students to trace their hands. Many method books also include a page for this activity. However, none of these include one little thing I really wanted, so I decided to make my own sheet. I’ll tell you what it is, but first, the backstory.
It’s very easy when attending professional development conferences, to hear great ideas but then forget to put some of those ideas into place. When I attended the 2017 MTNA Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, I gleaned a fun idea from a session given by Amy Immerman on tracing students’ hands.
She suggested that with young beginner students we not only trace their hands but retrace them every so often so students can see how much they’re growing – kind of like the typical height-growth chart found in a lot of homes, but for piano! 🙂
Children love to learn and see how they are growing. Just last night I had a group class for tweens. When I asked each of them to remind me how old they were, none of them responded with their actual age. They stated how old they would be in how long, such as “I’ll be 13 in two months.”
Growth, in whatever form it is, feels good.
The reason none of the other printables I’ve ever found have worked for me is that they don’t remind me to re-trace their hands. It’s easy to forget to do things unless they’re right in front of us (a perfect example of why so many teachers love method books).
This printable includes instructions for students to trace their hands multiple times over the course of their first year of lessons.
I would recommend keeping it in front of their piano binder or in their student file folder. (Check out my student files here.)