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Friday, July 2, 2010

Magnetic Staff Board

While I was doing planning for my summer camps, I really wanted to use a staff board the kids could use to add notes and have it be large enough for the kids to work together as a team. Because I wanted to use it with speed races, I also wanted a way the kids could add notes quickly. Since I haven't come across anything like what I imagined, I decided I needed to make it! I originally thought about using caulk board paint, but really wanted it to be magnetic. Who knew they made magnetic paint?

I picked up two pieces of plywood measuring 2' x 4', painted them with 3-4 coats of the magnetic paint and then covered them with white exterior paint. Once they were completely dry, I used painter's tape to tape off the lines of the staff as you can see here.

Once I did that, I added the treble and bass clefs and it made a great grand staff!

I then used a paper punch to punch out 1 3/4" circles, laminated them and added a piece of a magnet strip to the back side.

I made two boards to help with team races. I have all kinds of ideas for using these. Team races to spell words, work on intervals, note identification, etc. These will also work great in my studio during weekly lessons or group lessons.
Because I have a set of handbells, I'm also considering punching out notes to match the colors of the handbells. All I need is a few pieces of matching colored cardstock which I can get at a local craft store. I'm also considering making some sharps and flats to work on key signatures.

These boards were super simple to make. The most expensive part is the magnetic paint, but one can easily covered the two boards, with a 1/3 of the paint left. I hope this gives you some ideas!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing information. I could understand how you draw the lines with painters tape but couldn't figure out how you draw the clef signs. Did you use markers, sharpies, stencils or something else?

Thanks