Its almost spring, the weather is slowly getting warmer, and its time to move! And working on Rhythm is a great way to do that, so thats our game theme for March. For some students, rhythm comes naturally, and for others, they struggle even with keeping a steady beat. These games are a fun way to help them practice counting rhythms and remember how many beats each kind of note gets.
The first game we played is called Rhythm Pass by Nicola Cantan at Vibrant Music Teaching and Colorful Keys. Incidentally all our games in this blog post are by her. She offers lots of great resources for teachers on the VMT site. But Rhythm Pass is a simple game that does not require much preparation. It is a simple sheet with 4 rows of rhythms in different colors and is divided into a number of boxes. In each box is a note or rest and there is one box in each row that is empty.
The student (player 1) claps the rhythm across row 1 and decides what to put in the empty box. Either myself or player 2, must guess what they put in the empty box by listening to what they clap. Then I (or player 2) will clap the 2nd row and do the same thing and player 1 has to guess what went in the empty box, and so on. There are 4 rows on each sheet and there are a total of 4 sheets for some variety. All the rhythms given stick to quarter note, half note, quarter rest, and paired eighth notes, so the rhythms stay simple.
The 2nd game of the month is called Star Seekers. There is a game board with yellow, orange and green stars. All the yellow stars say Name, all the orange stars say Beats, and the green stars say Bonus. There is a deck of cards, and each card has a note on it. Player 1 rolls the dice (or since we are online, I roll the dice for them) and moves that many spaces. If they land on a Name star, they must tell me the name of the note on the card. If they land on a Beat star, they have to tell me how many beats the note on the card gets. If they land on Bonus star, they can choose to tell me the name or the number of beats, and they get a 2nd turn. If any of these answers are incorrect the rules say they must move back 3 spaces!! I felt that was a lot for some students, since most of my students are playing against me. So I changed it to one space only. The kids always having fun winning against the teacher!
Our 3rd game of the month, which we will start next week, is called Railway Rhythms and I’m excited to try this one, especially with my pair of brother-students. Each player is randomly given a train engine card that has a time signature on it (2/4, 3/4, or 4/4). Then, there is a deck of train car cards that have either a 2-beat, 3-beat, or 4-beat rhythm on them. In the original rules there is supposed to be a discard pile but being online makes that part difficult so we skipped that. Each player takes a turn by choosing a card and clapping the rhythm. Then they must decide if that rhythm fits their train engine time signature or not. If it does, I add it to their engine. If it does not, it goes on the bottom of the deck. The first player to get 4 cars added to their engine, wins the game! The students are not only clapping and counting rhythms but relating it to a specific beat and time.
Also in exciting news for the month of March, we are starting to put together some pieces for our Virtual Spring Recital!! We did a virtual recital in December 2020 and it went so well, I knew it was time for another one. So stay tuned about that, more info to come!
Miss Donna 4 Music 