Puffy stickers are really handy for a few different things when teaching beginning strings and they work well because you can easily feel a bumpy sticker. To help students place their left thumbs on the correct place on the neck, I stick a puffy sticker in that spot and they can immediately feel when their thumbs are in the right place. Depending on the shape of the sticker, you can create a story or analogy to help students remember how to place their thumbs correctly. For example, I found some puffy kitty stickers and I told students a story about how fragile little kittens are and how you have to hold them gently and not squeeze them. When placing the thumbs on the kitty sticker, they had to remember not to squeeze on the kitty and to keep the thumbs loose and soft.
Check out what I found at Wal-Mart today! I was walking by the stickers and I stopped to see if they had any puffy stickers and they had these....
I was so excited - I bought 2 packages but now I wish I would have bought more. These are perfect for helping beginners watch their bow to keep their bows straight between the fingerboard and the bridge. When students first place their bows on the string, I always instruct them to keep their eyes on the bow to keep it straight. It seems like so many times, they are bowing totally crooked and they aren't focusing on the bow, so I will say, "Eyes on your bow!" Now, I can really stick some eyes on their bow to help them remember the goal of carefully placing and moving the bow.
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