The Ladybug "Music" Game

Since I have quite a few young beginners this year and because I have been doing Pre-piano camps, I wanted to have another game that reinforced note values.  On a shopping trip to Walmart recently, I found this game:

It's a wonderful game invented by a 6-year girl after being challenged by her 1st grade teacher.  It features ladybugs, aphids, ants and praying mantis.  It's an adorable game and very imaginative.  I really wanted to support this young inventor's hard work so I bought it and found a way to use it to reinforce note values to younger children.  I made note stickers (using Avery labels and Microsoft Word) to cover the aphid pictures on the board and on the actual aphid pieces.  Rather than collect aphids, the players now collect "beats".  I didn't want to make it too complicated or take away from the integrity of the game so I didn't change anything else other than change a few words on the board (Instead of sliding across the branch, the ladybugs slide across the "staff" and instead of giving the ants aphids, they collect beats...).

This is obviously a very simple game for young beginners, but it's already a hit!  I plan to use it at one of my group lessons at the end of the month.  This group is a bunch of 5-7 year olds who are all fairly new to the piano.  I thought it would be a great reinforcer, but I also wanted talk to them about creativity even at their age!

I want them to realize that even 6 year olds can be creative and accomplish a lot! 

What's funny is that my house is actually in the path of real ladybugs and every year my studio has ladybugs crawling on the ceiling and walls.  The kids really find that funny and this game just adds to the charm!