This article about creating a lesson plan for piano students returning after a holiday break was written by Carmen Carpenter. Carmen has taught music in a school setting as well as in her home studio for over 30 years. Teaching combines two of her favourite things: music and kids! Besides teaching music, Carmen loves spending time with family playing games, working puzzles and watching movies. She is also an avid reader and loves taking long walks with her dog, Elmer.
No music studio teacher has lessons 52 weeks out of the year. It just doesn’t happen. Whether your piano students are coming back from a summer break or trudging into the piano studio after their winter holiday, you need a plan for that first lesson so you and your students can reconnect, refresh and get inspired for the coming lesson term.
I’m a teacher who busily continues with lessons and running camps during summer months, but there’s still a good chance I haven’t seen some of my students in several weeks when we start back-to-school lessons.
And students are often a bit different at first after a break, whether it’s back-to-school blues or winter-holiday highs.
Rather than trying to jump right in and run the lesson business-as-usual, I take this as a golden opportunity to start with a fresh perspective, set the tone for the upcoming term and make sure my students and I are still on the same page.
These 5 flexible elements combine to make the perfect after-break piano lesson plan for any age or skill level.
Element 1: Reconnect
If it’s been a little while since I’ve seen my students, I like to start with get-to-know-you types of activities. Even if I’ve had a student for 5 years, there’s always a chance they’re no longer mad about Taylor Swift or Minecraft or the latest Disney princess movie.
Even short winter breaks can change a kids’ interests if they’ve been binge-playing their new video game or spending extra time with friends.
Catch Up
I like to spend a minute or 2 talking about the best part of the student’s break. And don’t forget to share what you did, too – it’s a great way to build rapport and break down any barriers that may have sprung up during the holiday.
This isn’t usually a long, involved conversation – it’s just a way to make sure I’m showing interest in what the student was up to and to re-establish the teacher-student bond.
Pictures
If it’s the first piano lesson after a longer summer break, I always take students’ pictures. I like to display their pictures in the studio along with a little information sheet (more on that in a bit) so all the other students can see who’s in the studio family.
They have loads of fun looking at the pics and info, and I love hearing them say things like “Oh, I go to that school too!” or “They like purple, and so do I!”.
Pro tip: Be sure you have a parent’s permission to take and display photos of their kiddos so there isn’t any trouble down the road.
These pictures are also a great way for me to look back and see how much students have grown – and frankly, I often use them to remember when a student started lessons with me. (I mean, why would I keep written records with that information when I can look at their sweet faces instead?)
Information Sheets
To the student pictures, I attach a short info sheet with the answers to a few simple questions. Most of the questions are the usual fare: name, age, school etc.
But each year, I try to change up the “interest” questions so students have to think of new things to share about themselves, and everyone gets to learn new tidbits about their studio mates.
I usually put just 2 questions on the sheet because, (A) I don’t want to spend too much time on this activity, and (B) I don’t want wandering eyes and brains taking valuable time reading each and every person’s info during a lesson.
That said, at the next lesson, when the pictures and info sheets appear on the wall, I do allow a minute or two for the students to look them over. (They mostly just find themselves, of course. 😂)
Here are a few questions I’ve used in the past::
- Name one thing that makes you laugh
- If you wrote a song, what would it be about?
- What’s one thing that makes you awesome?
- Name one thing you’d like everyone to know about you
The possibilities are endless. Just use the ol’ noggin to come up with what you and others might like to discover about your students.
Element 2: Binder Refresh
At the first piano lesson back from any break, it can be a great plan to go through students’ binders and dump anything that’s no longer needed or wanted and add any new items.
Some students want to keep absolutely everything they’ve ever done in lessons, including that pre-reading ‘Jingle Bells’ from 11 years ago, no-longer-needed scale sheets and completed theory pages.
And, you know what? I’ll let you in on a little secret: If it’s important to them, I just let them keep it in the binder.
But, you do you!
If a binder free of additional clutter is important to you, then by all means, take the opportunity to recycle that stuff. Or keep some large manila envelopes on hand to let your students take the stack home for safe keeping.
Element 3: The Future ‘Musical Me’
In any after-break piano lesson plan, I like to revisit goals and motives for taking lessons in a little activity I call ‘Musical Me’.
I ask students to think about and draw a picture of how they see themselves using their musical learning in the future. Sometimes they draw themselves on a stage performing, but often it’s just them at a piano in a house.
One time, I had a student draw an elaborate picture of themself doing someone’s hair while watching a telly in the background. The telly was airing a video of themself playing the piano. (Man, I’d love to have a hairdresser like that!)
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No matter how you decide to cover students’ goals, be sure to have the conversation so you (and they, just as importantly) know where they want to go with their lessons.
They’ll be so much more invested if you give them a chance to ponder and express why they’re even taking lessons in the first place.
Element 4: Make Some Music
This is a music lesson, right? So we’ve got to make some music! But I never launch into brand new material at this first lesson. Once we’ve done all that house cleaning, there isn’t much extra time (or brain space) for getting something new started.
Improvise
Improvisation is a fantastic way to wrap up any first piano lesson after a break. It sets the tone for future creative efforts while being an easy win. After all that binder organising and thinking about their future, they need to do something a bit more chill.
The ways to improvise are endless! Even someone who started lessons 3 weeks before the winter break can play around on the black keys to create a pentatonic song about their favourite ice cream flavour.
In fact, some of my primary school students (mid-elementary for folks in the US) enjoy that activity, too!
For my intermediate and advanced students, I have them use their chord and scale knowledge to create a little 2-hand ditty expressing how their holidays went.
Revisit
If improvisation really makes your student uncomfortable, I wouldn’t force it at that first lesson after a break.
Instead, I ask them to play a piece they learnt the previous year – or further back if they so choose.
Regardless of what it is, I just make sure that this first music lesson after a break has some actual music-making included in the plan.
Element 5: Send Them Away Smiling
However you choose to approach this kind of lesson plan – my way or yours – please make sure that, in the midst of getting all the ducks in a row for the next term, you keep it fun and light-hearted so you can send students away with a smile.
Putting “fun” at the center of the lesson will set the tone for what you expect in the lessons to come.
What does your plan look like for the first lesson after a holiday break?
We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments. 🙂
For more resources on lesson planning – including step-by-step lesson plans for new adults, tweens and transfer students – visit our hub page devoted to lesson planning.
As an English teacher for foreigners, I find Carmen Carpenter’s approach to “after‑break lessons” wonderfully familiar — and surprisingly universal. Although she writes about piano teaching, many of her ideas translate beautifully into language learning classrooms as well. Music teachers and language teachers share a surprising amount of common ground.
Thank you, Mercedes!