Teaching Key Signatures

My beginners have been just learning about key signatures and how to tell when to play F sharps or F naturals or C sharps and C naturals.  This is a concept that is so important for beginners to understand.  I know it will save me tons of time if my beginners can learn to read key signatures now. 

Before this point we had been practicing 'high 2' and 'low 2' finger-patterns, but had not connected the finger-patterns to key signatures.  I use this very basic diagram to practice a 'D' scale:  Play D scale with 'happy happy' (F#, C#), 'sad sad' (F and C naturals), or 'happy sad' (F sharp, C natural).  This helps students establish the basic finger-patterns on those strings. 

The next step is to make sure students understand when to play the different finger-patterns.  For some reason students sometimes struggle making the connection between key signatures and finger-patterns changes.  After teaching what a key signature means, I change my diagram to help students understand:

Once students understand how to interpret a key signature, we talk about the other strings.  (Why violins have always been playing low 2 on the E string, etc.)

Next it is important to check for understanding to make sure all students can accurately read and interpret a key signature.  I just created these worksheets to use this year...