128 – Using 3-Ringer Binders for Student Materials

I’m Amy Chaplin. Today we’re going to talk about a piece an office supply item that can make a huge difference in helping keep student materials organized—the humble 3-ring binder.

A 3-ring binder is a great place to pull everything together, including written assignment sheets. If you are using written assignment sheets for your students, be sure to check out Assignment Sheet Central on the Piano Pantry website, where you can download a bundle of more than 20 different types of assignment sheets, including a Star Wars-themed one and a Piano Safari-themed one.

The content of today’s episode is actually a replay of one of the most downloaded episodes of the podcast – #033 originally called Utilizing Student Binders. I always find it so interesting what episodes make their way to the top and this is one that definitely caught me by surprise.

It may be a replay episode but I still have a fresh life tip to share with you so stay tuned until the end.

Today’s topic might sound like a simple one, but I think you’ll be surprised at the variety of things you need to think about when purchasing and utilizing a binder to organize your student’s materials.

Just a quick clarification that what we’re talking about today is giving every student a binder just like they receive a book that they bring back and forth with them to lessons. We’re not necessarily talking about having a 3-ring binder for yourself in the studio for each student to organize their materials IN the studio. You’ll want to jump back to episode #001 – Organizing Student Materials

Just so that’s clear.

Using binders for music lessons is not exactly a brand new idea. What I want to do today is talk you through some basic things to consider when choosing binders and help you think through all the different ways you can utilize this organizational tool. Of course, along the way, you’ll get to hear exactly what mine are like as well.

First off – the purchase.

The first thing to consider is size. Generally, 1” is an all-around happy place. Students can grow into it and if you are purchasing a bunch at once, having all students in the same size makes it easy to purchase in bulk. I do have a few students with 1/2” binders, but it’s usually either adult students or beginner students that are only in their first year or two of lessons. I don’t normally purchase 1/2” binders intentionally; I just had them around and needed to use them up.

Baby steps here. The next question is COLOR. It really is something have you have to consider. Do you want all your students to have the same color? Do you have a studio theme color? Do you want everyone to have the same color, but perhaps for siblings you have additional colors so it’s easy for for them to identify whose is whose. Maybe want to purchase a slew of random colors and let students pick which one they want? I’ve done all of the above and there is no right answer. It’s just something to consider in your purchase process.

Next. Style. Do you want them to have clear plastic outer sleeves or just be solid? The benefit of an outer sleeve is you can insert things like a specialized binder cover for your studio or maybe for a theme of the year, or your studio calendar.

Next. Pockets. Single pockets or double pockets on the inside? LOL I’m serious! These are the choices you have. For the record, I find the double pockets not that useful. I don’t think double pockets come with most economy binders anyway.

Next. Ring-opening style. Some of the nicer binders have a lever at the bottom that makes opening the rings easier one-handed. That’s all good and lovely, and yes, it really does open easier. However, I’ve personally found these to be trickier for how we use them because if the binder is on the music stand, it’s hard to open using that bottom lever.

Finally, when it comes to the purchase, quality. My advice is not to go with the cheapest, cheapest ones. The metal rings are often easily misalign, and the goal here is to purchase ones that will last 2-3 years but aren’t so expensive it breaks the bank buying them.

The next thing to consider is dividers. You’re definitely going to want dividers of some kind, or it will just be a stash of unorganized papers. The question to ponder is… 5 tabs or 8 tabs or maybe two sets of 5 if you want 10 tabs. Ah… living dangerously here. LOL.

I’ve always liked binder dividers that you can write with a pen or pencil and erase easily. While the printable label ones would be wonderful, I always felt they would take too much work, and being able to just hand write on the tabs would give more flexibility. It’s your choice, though! Again, this is just something to consider here.

OK. Now that the binder choice details are out of the way, let’s get into the nitty gritty of what to put in your students binders.

Let’s start with the question listener Jill posted to me. While listening in on episode #031 Easing into the First Lesson she heard me talking about putting together materials for my student binders. She was curious if I had printables available for the RCM Technical Skills. She had struggled finding something or putting something together herself that was crisp and articulate.

So, the first item that is good to keep in a binder are technical skill sheets. If you do not use a dedicated technique from a method book, the binder is a great place to keep scale sheets and such. My answer to Jill’s question was that no, I do not have my own technical skills sheets for RCM. I simply utilize Joy Morin’s charts that she makes available for free on her website ColorinMyPiano.com. I will link to those in the show notes.

Several other bloggers also have great downloadable resources for technique that I know of, including Natalie Weber and Melody Payne.

The next thing that the binder is useful for is downloadable sheet music.

While most of my students play repertoire from hardcopy books, sometimes we do chord charts or lead sheets or they request a specific song and I simply download it from MusicNotes.com. On top of that these days there is lots of digital licensed music available. In order to save space in your students binders, do you best to print double-sided!

The third thing to use students’ binders for is keeping a list of your students’ mastered pieces. If you’re a teacher who likes doing the 40-piece challenge or even the 20 or 30-piece challenge, Wendy Stevens has downloadable sheets you can use each year. All you really need, though, is a numbered piece of paper. When the student masters a piece you write it down. While I don’t do the challenge formally, I like tracking their mastered pieces mostly because it’s so easy to forget how much music they have learned from the start to the end of the year. It’s always fun to look back with them and say “hey, do you remember that piece!”

I also like to track students playing pieces by memory here. After students master a song, I ask them if they would like to keep playing it for fun, memorize it, or be done. Kuddos to Piano Safari for this idea, which I’ve been doing for years and it works brilliantly. When they play a song by memory, I simply place a star next to it on their master repertoire list. I usually have them play a memory piece for me three weeks in a row before moving on.

Alright, now how about student artwork? If you teach preschool-age students or even early elementary, including an art project of some kind tied to the piece they are learning can be fun. I use Marilyn Lowe’s Music Moves for Piano Keyboard Games books for my youngest students and will sometimes just give them a blank piece of paper and ask me to draw a picture of X piece and bring it to their next lesson. Keeping these all in their binder keeps them from getting crunched in the piano bag and you know exactly what I’m talking about!

I already mentioned this one briefly when talking about having binders with outer sleeves, but there are a few items that are great either in the outer sleeves OR in their own divider tab. One of those is a student calendar. Another may be a copy of your policies document, but I’ll just tell you from experience it’s really unnecessary these days and a waste of binder space. I just don’t think most families are going to go dig in there but you decide for yourself.

A special single sheet I like to include on the back cover is a piano teacher family tree. I was lucky that my grad school teacher shared with me a special piano teacher family tree that was able to trace roots clear back to Beethoven. It’s a fun way to make students feel special – even if you can’t trace your teachers back to someone like Beethoven. This is something I share as part of a guest post written by Christina Whitlock on the piano pantry website called Varsity Musician’s Playbook Part 2: Studio “Locker Room” which, of course, I will post a link to in the show notes.

We’re rounding the corner to our final few ideas here, friends.

The next segment of tabs that can be nice to keep in your binder is for Christmas music. While you could keep it in the same section as downloadable sheet music, I’ve always found it useful to keep them separate. I love having my students learn to play some Christmas tunes by ear each year, and even have a resource I launched in December of 2021 you can get at PianoPantry.com.

Along those same lines, I have started to designate one entire tab divider to the song “Happy Birthday.” All of my students learn to play this song at the beginning of every year. Sometimes I review it mid-way , and sometimes we don’t. I believe so strongly though in the need for all students to be able to play this tune anywhere at any time that, as I said, one who divider tab in their binder is dedicated to this tune’s. This is a gesture that I hope shows them how important it is for them to know how to play the tune. Like the Christmas By Ear, I also have an item in the Piano Pantry shop for playing Happy Birthday by Ear you can use with your students as well, both of which are linked in the show notes.

If you enjoy all the organizational advice you get here, consider joining the next digital organization intensive, which will be held on August 5, 6, and 7th from 10am to 1pm Eastern time. In this three-day workshop, we’ll work through a process of cleanup and reorganization of six key areas of your daily digital work landscape, including devices, computers, document files, media, online content and subscriptions, and email.

Start your year off right by visiting PianoPantry.com/digital for more details and to register. Register before July 25 to get $20 off.

Thanks to Patreon supporters Ruby, Jason, and Christine for your ongoing support of this podcast. Because of their generous support, I can continue to share with you each week all kinds of things related to living the independent music teacher life including fun tips like this:

Keep a container of pencils and highlighters for students on the piano so you can encourage them to make markings on their music during lessons. It’s so easy to just do this ourselves as teachers but having them do it physically themselves is another level of reinforcement that I think can hep them take ownership over their own learning.

There you go – one more tip for one more week of happy teaching.

See you next week, everyone!

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