This game is a favorite among my beginner piano students. I love it because it helps them learn the names of the piano keys faster so that they can make more rapid progress. All you do is print and then cut out the ice cream scoops. Hold up a scoop and ask the student to tell you the name of the key. If they answer correctly, they get to add the scoop to their cone. Before long, they’ll have a tall ice cream cone and they’ll be super excited. Click here to full the original post with full instructions and to print this game.
Send kids on a fun treasure hunt that helps them learn how to recognize and identify music symbols. Teacher hides the symbols around the room and then gives each student a map. Turn the kids loose to match all the symbols with the names on their pirate map. This is a great game for a group lesson. You can even give a prize to whoever finds all the symbols the fastest. Click here to print.
I created this cute poster for some younger students who were just learning how to differentiate the bottom, middle and top notes on the bass staff. To very young kids, all the notes can look the same, and it gets confusing when they’re asked to differentiate the notes–it’s just a bunch of circles sitting on top of lines! So I began by asking students to simply tell me if the note is on the bottom of the staff, the middle, or the top. I found this approach worked very well to help my youngest students begin interpreting music notation. Click here to print the poster and learn more about how I used it.
You guessed it! If there’s a fun poster for bass clef, there’s also one for the treble clef. Use this poster to take your youngest piano students on a trip to visit the Treble Clef Zoo. There they will learn how to recognize and name the bottom, middle and top treble clef notes. Click here to get the cute poster.
Share your music theory games
What other games do you like to play to teach music theory to kids? Leave a comment below to share your fun ideas with other teachers. We all benefit when we work together!
I ended up making a ‘Happy Families” game. The 4 cards to match were A treble clef note, a bass clef note, a note on the keyboard and the letter name. You can extend it as far as you like or restrict it to a particular position depending on what is needed.
EG I made a C position one so the groups were Middle C, Bass C, Keyboard C and the letter C and so on for all the letters C, D, E, F, G. I included pictures that started with the relevant letter on the letter cards.
Thanks for sharing your fun game idea, Ngarita!
I love using games in lessons but found I sometimes forgot about some of them tucked away in my cabinet. I organized online links by concept and level on my piano game resource page at heidispiano notes.blogspot.com so I can easily find the ones that are appropriate for my students. Some favorite group games are Candyland, Don’t Eat Pete and Piano Cranium but I also like to start off almost every lesson with a quick game relevant to the focus concept for that week like pianimation half step whole step sprint or Tie Track Slur Slope.