Music Games for Elementary
Music games can be a very useful tool to help keep music interesting and engaging for your elementary students. When students hear that a game will be played, this usually peaks the interest of most children, helping to keep their attention. Games prove to be a useful tool in helping to reinforce various key concepts. Many are easy to create on your own with a few materials.
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Musical Story
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For a game that helps to reinforce the musical alphabet, write a story. Leave blank words and in their place write the words with music notation on a staff. For example, "I went to the garden and picked a cabbage." Cabbage would be spelled out on the staff instead of written. Using the letters A,B, C, D, E, F and G can create a number of word combinations that can be incorporated into the story. While many are fairly short, some longer words to consider are baggage, faded and gagged. For a variation, alternate between bass and treble clefs.
Musical Bingo
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Musical bingo is an easy game to create that is good for a large group of music students. This is a helpful game to reinforce the names of different musical symbols. The game can be tailored to all different levels as well. For younger students, make a board with fewer squares. For older, more experienced students, make more squares and use more advanced symbols. To create the cards, choose a word for the top, such as "music" or "notes." Fill in the blank spaces with different musical symbols. Ideas include dynamic markings (mf, pp, f), different note types (whole, eighth, dotted quarter), slurs, ties, time signatures and rests.
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Musical Memory
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Musical memory can be used to help students learn to match definitions with symbols. Using note cards, write the definition of a word on one side. Take another card and draw the symbol that corresponds to the definition. Do this with enough cards to make at least 10 pairs. Tailor the level of the game to match the experience level of your students. Ideas of what to include for young students include bass clef, sharp, note types, different note names, rests and bar lines. To play, shuffle the cards and place them all face down on a table or floor. Students take turns turning two cards over. Once someone gets a match, they keep the cards and get another turn. The game can be played by as few as one student or as many as four. For large classes, make several sets of cards and have the students pair off.
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References
- Photo Credit music image by peter Hires Images from Fotolia.com
