On Pinterest, I saw an idea for a sight-word game called BANG and decided it would make an excellent music game. Here is my musical version:
I tried it out with my students at our Piano Party last Saturday, and it was a hit. The BANG! cards add an element of fun to an otherwise ordinary flashcard drill. Continue reading “Bang! Rhythm Game”
Remember last February when I created this DIY floor staff? I thought I’d share a little activity that shows how I used it recently with my Piano Readiness Class.
(Don’t mind my cat, Coda, who totally photo-bombed this photo. 🙂
The two students I was working with have already learned to identify high and low sounds when we sing or listen to music, and can recognize the treble and bass clef symbols. I showed them the floor staff (which they were totally excited about), and asked them to count the number lines and spaces with me. I demonstrated that notes can either be line notes or space notes. Then, I put the treble clef and bass clef on the floor staff, for high and low sounds.
After that introduction, I handed each student a foam disc (you can find these in the craft section at many stores) and gave them two directions: (1) line or space note, and (2) high or low note. After placing notes on the staff in this way for a while, they realized there were also “middle” notes, so we started doing that too. Then we started doing it backwards: I asked them to put a note anywhere they wanted, and to tell me whether it was a line/space note and whether it was high/middle/low.
This turned out to be a fun little activity for introducing the staff to a couple of four-year-olds! The next step will be to associate the alphabet names to the lines and spaces. 🙂
A new free Printable has been added to the Printables page:
These cards are a great manipulative to use with young beginners when you are first introducing them to the keyboard. Students can use the cards to build a keyboard on the floor, alternating the groups of 2 and 3 black keys. Or, students can use these at the piano, and lay the cards right on the piano keyboard, matching the groups of black keys appropriately. I printed a few sets of these cards, laminated them, and put them in zipper bags. This short activity is great for Piano Readiness Classes.
There are two versions included in the pdf: one with the letter names on the keys, and one without. To download this free pdf, visit the Printables > Other Resources page and scroll down to the B’s for “Black Key Group Sorting Cards.” Enjoy!
Black Key Group Sorting Cards (258.0 KiB, 56,153 hits)
Now that I have enough students to do so, I have begun holding monthly group lessons with my students. I tried it a few times last year, but ended up with a poor turnout both times. Fortunately, now I have enough students to make it worth the effort. I call them “Piano Parties.”
Right now, any of my students under age 15 are invited. My youngest private students are 4, so this makes for a very wide range of ages! Eventually, my goal would be to split them into groups by age/level, but for now, I am just happy to give them some kind of group lessons. I am keeping them very fun and informal.
Our first one was a back-to-piano pizza party last month, and I completely forgot to blog about it. Oops! 🙂 I’ll tell you about it now. Continue reading “My New Monthly Group Lessons: “Piano Parties””
Yesterday, I posted a new Forum Q&A post about organization. If you are the kind of teacher who enjoys using games and props during lessons, it’s not easy to find a system for storing and organizing everything! I’m always on the look-out for better ways to stay organized.
Here’s a picture of my current system:
I have finally completed the lesson plans for the Musical Olympics Camp! This pdf is a FREE download from the Printables > Lesson Plans page. Let me give another thank you to Sheryl Welles for her great game ideas, and for her permission to include descriptions of those games in the lesson plan.
This pdf also includes a few new printables I created for the Musical Olympics Camp. I decided to make some of those new printables available for download on the Printables page too, since some of them may easily be used for activities besides the camp. Here’s a list of all the printables:
Here’s some photos to enjoy from our final day of Musical Olympics Camp. Since it was our last day, I invited the students’ parents to come and watch our last hour of camp. We re-played a few of our favorite games from the week, and also had an Olympic Awards Ceremony. More details below.
Our first game was the Ultimate Rhythm Relay, which was a culmination of all the relays we did throughout the week! First, the student tossed the musical beach ball (from yesterday) in the air and complete the musical task it indicated. Then, they ran to the buckets and tossed a beanbag until they got it into a bucket. The buckets were each marked with a note/rest. Last, students ran over to the ring toss area, where they had to toss a ring until they got it over the flag whose note/rest matched the bucket they had tossed their beanbag into. Then students ran back to the starting point to tag the next player. I know it sounds complicated, but these relays are much easier to explain by demonstration than they are to describe in words! Continue reading “2012 Musical Olympics Camp – Day 4”
Here’s some photos to enjoy from Day 3 of my Musical Olympics camp:
Our first game was the Build-A-Keyboard Interval Challenge. To prepare, I drew a large keyboard on the cement for each team using chalk. I gave each team two spinners: a musical alphabet one, and an interval spinner (unison through 5th). Each of the four students on each team had a job: two students held the spinners, and the other two students stood on the starting note on the keyboard and the second note of the interval in order to build interval indicated on the spinner. Teams raced to see how many intervals they could build within 5 minutes. I didn’t get a very good photo of this game, because my husband and I were too busy tracking each team’s points (it’s a fast-moving game!). 🙂 Continue reading “2012 Musical Olympics Camp – Day 3”
We had great weather on Day 2 of our camp last week!
Our first game of the day was Sheryl Welles’ fabulous Musical Alphabet Noodle Relay! For this relay, team members must travel via the noodle to retrieve alphabet flags from the ground and bring them back to the starting point. For the first round, they had to retrieve the flags in order A-G, and the second round they retrieved them backwards. Watching them travel via the noodle was pretty hilarious, I must admit! My students loved this game. Continue reading “2012 Musical Olympics Camp – Day 2”
Last week, I held a Musical Olympics camp for my students and it was a great success! We had such a fun week and I received a lot of positive feedback from the students and parents. I will definitely continue doing similar camps in future years!
Over the course of this week, I’m going to be sharing lots of details and photos. At the end of the week, I’ll share a pdf download with more details about the materials and directions for the games. 🙂
Here’s some of the details:
For Day 1 of camp, my wonderful friend Loretta (who lives a couple of hours away) came for a visit to be my camp helper! It was great seeing her again.
This morning with my homeschool music class, I played this game with my students:
As I was lesson planning last night, I was trying to think of a new way to practice the names of the piano keys. My homeschool music class is mostly a music history class, but we’ve been learning basic music/piano concepts too. My students already know how to figure them the piano key names by counting from Middle C, but they need more practice to get them memorized. So I came up with this game, which I called the “Spell-A-Keyboard Game.”
My students loved this game! I gave them each a set of cards with words containing only A-G (I gave them only the three-letter words for today) and a silent keyboard or paper keyboard, and three glass gems (pennies or buttons work too). Then I instructed them to “spell” the words from each flashcard by covering the right keys with glass gems. If you are playing this game with students at the piano, you can require that students spell the letters in order from left to right, but on a silent keyboard there might not be room to do so (as in the example shown in the photo).
This game is a great way to practice the piano key names without it actually feeling like a drill! My students really enjoyed seeing how quickly they could spell the words and were pretty proud of their work each time.
You can download the “Musical Alphabet Word Flashcards” on the Printables > Games page. When I created the cards, I tried to pick mostly words that kids would know. Enjoy!
Update: I just realized that Susan Paradis plays a game very similar to this, except the words are spelled on the staff! Read more here.
Update: Read about the outdoor version of this game here, where I describe my Musical Olympics Camp.
Update: I also found a way to adapt this game to be used with two floor keyboards indoors, with two teams. Click here for more info.
A large percentage of my studio right now is beginner/early elementary students. I like having simple and short games to play with them at the end of the lesson that reinforce concepts we are learning in their books. Motor Music Match is a game that I created with these things in mind. Take a look:
The point of the game is to match each car and sign to its proper place on the road where the rhythm value’s names are. It’s a great game that only takes a minute or two, so it’s perfect for the end of the lesson where you have a little bit of extra time. It would also work well to keep a copy of this game in your studio’s waiting room area.
When I first tested out this game with a student, he said, “There should be another level where it’s harder.” That’s when I added the street signs. 🙂 So, to follow his suggestion, first ask your student to match the cars. When they are able to do that successfully, clear the road and add the signs to make the game a little harder.
To download the pdf for this game, visit the Printables > Games page and scroll down to the M’s for “Music Motor Match.” Enjoy!
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