This past semester, I hosted 2 Theory and Pizza events for my students. You can read about the first one here, which was for K-5 kids. I had a second one a week later for my middle and high school students.
It turned out to be a super busy weekend, so I only caught 2 of my middle schoolers, but it worked out perfectly. It gave us a chance to record a duet that they were both working on and we spent the rest of the time exploring scales and the circle of fifths.
We used stones on a paper keyboard to spell out scales while paying attention to the order of sharps and flats on the circle of fifths. Both of these students are super smart and caught on quickly.
We also spent some time at the piano playing through as many scales as we could.
I think it’s really helpful for students to have a chance to see how all of the scales fit together on the circle of fifths. I think it’s easy for them to get caught up on the piece of the pie that they’re currently working on. I try to make a point to give them a birds eye view of all of the scales whenever it’s possible.
Scales and the circle of fifths is such a valuable topic; I’ll have to repeat this Theory and Pizza event so that all of my other older students don’t miss out! 🙂
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