The Treble Clef Zoo

I have a cute little student who got a perfect score on the notereading part of her theory test. However, she kept getting low scores on her timed flashcards, so last week I went through the flashcards with her myself to find out what was going on.

You probably guessed it- she was counting lines and spaces to figure out the name of each note. I’m glad she can figure out the notes, but to be able to play well, she needs to be able to quickly identify each note by sight. We’d done tons of activities, but it looks like the information just didn’t stick.


And so this little visual aid was born. I’m working on a few new activities to help kids know their notes by sight, and I’m first focusing on the bottom, middle and top lines of the staff.

Hopefully if the kids can get this image in their heads, they’ll be able to quickly recall those notes.


I first tell the kids a fun little story about going to The Treble Clef Zoo. While at the zoo, I saw an elephant. On top of that elephant was a bird, and sitting on top of that bird was a fly.

Next, we transition to the treble staff and talk about how E is the bottom line note, B is the middle line note and F is the top line note. We play a few games to reinforce the concepts and then do a quick flashcard quiz to make sure they got it.


If your kids or the students you teach are having trouble quickly identifying notes, you might find this visual helpful. I hope you’ll give it a try and let me know how it works.