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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Note Identification Made Easy

This week I have been running my Mystery Music Camp again. It's a smaller, younger group of kids, but we're having a great time. I'm finding that I had to adapt quite a bit of the plan because there are kids that have NO musical experience. I quickly moved from teaching the notes on the staff, to teaching the musical alphabet forwards and backwards. I've been rapidly putting games together for the staff portion of the camp. I purchased these about a month ago and using a permanent marker, I put a letter name on two sides of these balls.
Then I just put together a couple of relays and had the kids run down to the balls and race to put a set together in order and then to put them together backwards. When they accomplished that, I had them put two octaves together to reinforce that "H" doesn't come next!

I also put together these flags. Again, I used relays to have the kids work their way to these flags and retrieve them in order, one at a time. I'm planning to use both these games in my Discovery (Pre-piano) camp as well. I'm making these flags available on my website here.

Super easy and super fun. Even though we're in the middle of a heat wave here in the Northeast, the kids are loving this!

3 comments:

Heidi said...

I love how these ideas get them actively moving while learning. Maybe I'll use the flags to help my students "spell chords" at our next group lesson.

Sheryl said...

Great idea, Heidi! I would love to hear how you end up using them and how the kids respond. I hope you let me know. Congratulations again on your beautiful new baby!

Ana Smith said...

I used the flags today at a Kick Off Party/Group Class for saying the musical alphabet backwards. I placed them randomly around the yard and had them run to retrieve them one at a time. They loved it!