A List of Christmas and Seasonal Printables

Ornament Bingo

I have a new student who is learning the letter names of piano keys. I was looking at my website trying to find something, and I found this game I posted last year. Last year I used green and red M&M’s as the bingo tokens. You can use the alphabet letters from my last post as calling cards.

I’m sorry I don’t have anything new for you today. But I thought I’d list some of my holiday season games here to make it easier for you to find something you might be able to use.  These printables include games for individuals or groups, composing activities for beginners, and worksheets. Some of the links below take you to the original blog post with a link to my website, and some take you directly to my website. Once on my website, click preview to download the item. Directions to the games are found by searching on this blog. Everything is free, but donations to help with running the site are greatly appreciated!  I want to thank from the bottom of my heart all of you who are supporting the site to keep it going as a resource for teachers all over the world. My only goal is to make piano lessons and music theory so much fun that children will love coming to lessons; that they will put their own children in piano so the legacy we love so much will continue.

In addition to the seasonal  games  and worksheets on my website, there are also 16 elementary Christmas songs and carols. I am working on some more carols and adding some more games, so check back.

Christmas Worksheet

Ornament Notes mixed up

Color the Chanukah Gift

Peppermint Notes

Ornament notes

Musical Christmas Lights

Draw the Ornaments

Gingerboy Keys

Light up the Tree

Christmas Musical Symbols Vocabulary

Make your own worksheet

Christmas Train Composing Activity

Christmas Note Bingo

Christmas Tree Vocabulary

Christmas Tune Game

Golden Menorah composing activity

Silly Sentences for Christmas

(be sure to download the cards that go with this)

Cards for Christmas Note Bingo

Cards for Christmas Note Bingo

Here are the cards I promised yesterday that you can use with Christmas Note Bingo.  (To help out teachers in the country that gave us Bach and Beethoven, I included an H, which they use instead of B.)

When you play Christmas Note Bingo, if you wish, the red cards can be treble notes and the blue cards can be bass notes. For fun, students can take turns deciding if the green cards are treble, bass, or both. Use your imagination. The wild card can also be used any way you wish. [Honestly, I added the wild card because I had a blank space to fill.] There is no right or wrong way to use my games. Well, that’s not quite true. The right way is to adjust a game so the students win more than they lose, and to make it light-hearted and fun. If you find the game is a struggle, change gears and help them out. Of course, you know that.  I’m preachin’ to the choir!

By the way, yesterday’s printable was in landscape mode, and today’s post is portrait, so be sure and change the mode if you are printing both. My printer does not do this for me, and I am always forgetting.

Other Ways to Use These Cards

Here are some suggestions to use these cards in other ways than the bingo game.

Beginners can learn the music alphabet by stringing the cards out on a table. These cards are small enough to use on the piano bench, unlike some cards, which are so big they have to be put on the floor. I don’t mind getting on the floor. It’s the getting up that’s the problem! Be sure to remove the H so they won’t get confused. (Unless you’re in Germany!)

For a Christmas piano party with young students, print out enough cards for 8 octaves. Divide the cards between the students. Tell them they have to make a string of cards on the floor that are the exact letter names on the piano. They will keep running over to the piano to count the keys and it is a good game for the group to work together.

Give a set to a beginning student and tell him you think you made a mistake. Ask if he can pick out the cards that do not belong.

If you’re like me and don’t know what to do with the H card, try using it as a wild card and call it the “Help” card. We all need a little help now and then. Plus it makes the game go faster.

I love it when teachers think of other ways to use material I post, so please feel free to leave a comment if you made up a fun game for your students.

Christmas Note Bingo

Christmas Note Bingo

Just in time for your holiday piano parties, I am posting a Christmas bingo game. This game features a snowman, so you can play it after Christmas, too. I like note bingo games with only 9 notes on a card because the game goes faster. In a group situation the game can be played more than once, so more students can win.

I made this game for students who know all the notes on the grand staff. One way to play it with beginning students is to give them a chart of the notes they have not learned yet so they can play along with the others. There is usually a chart in method books that we all have on hand. Or you can print out one of the many staves I have on my website and label the notes for the student to use.

There are 4 PDF pages with 2 boards on each page, supplying enough game boards for 8 students to have a different one.  Print the number of pages you need on card stock and cut in half. Laminate or cover the boards with clear contact paper to protect them.

Directions:

Give each student a game board and some bingo chips. Randomly call out notes from the music alphabet, such as “treble A”. (My next post will be a page of matching alphabet letters for teachers who want calling cards, or to play variations on the game.) If the student has that note on their board, they cover it with a bingo chip. I use magnetic wands and plastic chips, but it might be fun to use white chocolate candy chips as bingo chips and call it “snow.”  The game is over when the first person covers all the notes on their board.

Variations

1. For quick games, students only need to cover 3 notes, either diagonally or in a row up or down. This is great for students with short attention spans.

2. This game can also be played with the student and teacher. Place alphabet cards in a bowl and take turns drawing and covering the notes.

3. Students who know their notes really well like to play 2 cards at a time.

4. For an older student who needs to review ledger lines, play a different game.  Instead of using alphabet letters, place a stack of ledger line flash cards in front of the student.  After drawing a flash card, they put a chip on a corresponding note on their game board that is a different octave.

When the game is over, use your magnetic wand as the “snow plow” to swoop up their chips!

If you like this game and want to play it at other times of the year, there is a regular version on my website.

Save the Turkey-intermediate set

Save the Turkey Intermediate Level

If you have been following my blog lately, you know that I’ve been playing this game with my students. If you missed it, here are the instructions, found in the post with the first set.  That post also includes how to add the back of the cards. Set two is found here.

When I make a game for beginners, my older students want to play, too. So this time I made some cards for them. Included in this set are a few ledger line notes and all the key signatures. If students don’t constantly review these concepts, they forget them. A game is a great way to review!

You can mix and match these cards to suit yourself. Remove the ones you don’t want to use and save them for another day. You can also add some of these cards to set one or two. You can even use cards from the Memory Game found on my website (there are 6 sets) because they are the same size.

One thing I have discovered as I play this game with students, is that the more skip a turn cards the better, so you might want to add some from the previous levels. They also love it when I make a “mistake” and lose a turn.

Be sure to email me if you can’t figure out how to play. I really have trouble following game instructions, so I don’t mind helping. But first, read through my instructions in Set 1 so you can ask me specific questions! This is a fast game and you can easily play it in less than 5 minutes.

Here is a little guy playing with the first set. I think he liked the turkey!

Save the Turkey Game – Set 2

Save the Turkey set 2

In my last post I mentioned that I would post more  cards for the Save the Turkey Game. This set has a few more notes to identify and some more terms. My students have been enjoying this game. It is so easy to set up and play and doesn’t take much lesson time.

For directions to play please see read my previous post. You can find it here. I did not include the back of the cards in this PDF. If you want to print backs to these cards, set your PDF printing setting to Page 2 when you print the back. If you don’t want to print backs, I suggest you use some cute stickers on the back of the cards.

Hint: I printed this set on a different color of card stock than the first set so I can keep the levels separate. Or, you could combine the two sets.

Does anyone want another level? I have one but I don’t know if it’s too late to post this year.

Enjoy!

Save the Turkey

Save the Turkey

Save the Turkey is a fast and easy turn-over-the-card game. It only takes a few minutes of lesson time. It is a great game for teacher and student, but it can also be modified for groups. We have a few more weeks before Thanksgiving and I hope someone can use it.

The purpose of this game is to review music symbols and guide notes, so it is perfect for beginning students. Later I will add cards for more advanced students.

How to play

I tell students that whoever draws the turkey will save it from being turned into Thanksgiving dinner!

Shuffle the cards and put them in a stack on the table. Be sure the Turkey card is not near the top. The Skip a Turn cards should be evenly distributed. Player one draws a card and identifies the symbol.  As long as they answer the card correctly, they continue to draw until they draw a Skip a Turn card. Then the teacher (player 2) does the same thing. Whoever draws the Turkey card has “saved the turkey” and is the winner. The game is short, so the cards can be shuffled and played again.

For a variation,  I tell the student that if I make a mistake or “forget” the correct answer and they correct me, they take my turn. That keeps the student on his toes and it helps to keep the teacher from answering all the questions. I love to hold up the bass clef card, pretend to think really hard, and call it a treble clef. They giggle and bounce up and down and generally have fun. Feel free to make up your own rules and post them in a comment here.

I like the fact that even a beginner can win. All they have to do is draw the turkey card! However, along the way, they will be learning or reviewing important musical concepts. Let your younger children win most of the time.  They love it and it really helps make lessons more fun.

How to print

Download the PDF. In the PDF printer setting, set Print Range to  page 1. You do not want to print 2 pages right away because page 2 is the back of the cards. Set Page Scaling to None.

Print the first page on sturdy card stock. I used yellow card stock and below you can see how it looks.  Re-insert the page back into the printer (so you can print the reverse side) and set Print Range to page 2. If the front and back do not line up correctly, you either do not have page scaling set to “none” or you are not using 8.5″ x 11″ paper.

Alternately, if you don’t want to print on the back, put some cute Thanksgiving stickers on the backs of the cards.

After printing, cut the cards out along the dotted lines.

Please make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Reader. If your printed copy has odd black lines or boxes, or if some parts are missing, it is probably because you are using an old version of Adobe Reader.

Hurray, Thanksgiving Day on-the-staff

Hurray, Thanksgiving Day

If you used the pre-reading version of this song last year, you might be interested in my new version. I updated the art, changed the words a little, and added a very easy teacher duet that a family member can play. I wanted a Thanksgiving song that was fun to play, yet was more about the meaning of Thanksgiving.

The following are some hints for new teachers or parents who may want to try it with a beginning student or a student with some reading problems.

Teach the song by singing it to the child while you and the child tap the beat on the piano cover. Use a key higher than F because this song is not written in a child’s vocal range. When the child can sing the song, he or she is ready to learn it on the piano.

Discuss the time signature and point out the upbeat (incomplete measure) before the first measure. Simply show that the last beat from the end of the song is added to the beginning. Students accept that, and usually think it’s rather clever. If they are curious, I *sadly* tell them it can only be done at the beginning. As the child learns the notes, you can work on playing the upbeat softer than the downbeat. This concept can be explained in more detail when the student reaches that part of their method book, so a simple explanation is fine.

Help the child discover that the right hand moves by steps. This is a good piece to get experience starting on a note other than middle C.  They can have some fun by wiggling the thumb and pretending they are dropping it into some mashed potatoes. Parents, resist the temptation to write in all the notes or finger numbers.

They might feel more comfortable with the left hand because the thumb is on middle C. The LH notes are a little more difficult because there are some skips and leaps, so let the child find those places and circle them.  Spot practice difficult spots with fingers in the air, and then on the piano cover. I wonder what food the LH thumb can drop into!

Some young beginners have trouble alternating from right to left hand. I’ve found that a different colored highlighter for each hand can make a big difference. Use a pointer to help students’ eyes track the notes.

While this might seem like a lot to do for a simple 8 measure piece, remember I’m giving instructions for a beginner or a student who has trouble reading new pieces, not for a more experienced student. Taking time in the beginning helps the student become a good reader later down the road.