If I haven’t said it recently, thank you so much for your emails and comments. For those of us who like to share our material, your feedback is greatly appreciated. And to those of you who support my blog, thank you so very much!
I like material that can be used more than one way, so that is how I designed this interval bingo game. Worksheets and theory books are useful, but students enjoy games more and retain concepts better when playing a game or some other hands-on activity. Well, at least that has been my experience! You can play the short version of this game in less than 5 minutes.
There are 4 pages in this printable, two pages of bingo cards and 2 pages of calling cards. Print all the pages in landscape orientation. If you do not want to use the calling cards, print only the first 2 pages.
I had a lot of fun designing the graphics for this game. I hope your students enjoy it!
Material
- Interval Bingo Game printable cards, cut in half
- Calling cards, cut up
- Bingo chips or tokens to cover the squares (magnetic wands are fun!)
Directions
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For a quick game In a private lesson, the student and teacher alternate selecting calling cards from the stack and covering the correct interval with a bingo chip. The goal is to cover three squares in a row in any direction.
- At a group lesson, play “blackout” where students cover all the squares on their card. When the calling cards are used up, shuffle and re-use.
- For ear training, the teacher can play the intervals and the students put a bingo chip on the correct interval.
- Students can sing the intervals.
Objectives
- To learn to quickly Identify diatonic intervals on the grand staff
Ages
- Late elementary students
Your site if fabulous and gave me a lot of renewed energy & ideas to begin the new school year with…thanks so much for doing this!
Hey, Susan!! Can you make some interval flashcards, melodic and harmonic, treble and bass and at many different starting points? I have pulled some out of my publisher cards but a set I could print for students having trouble reading intervals and cards could take home would be awesome.
this blog is AWESOME!!!! I’m running out of ink I’m printing sooo much! ha keep up the good work!!
Hello, real nice blog. I have a piano related site in Brazil and i would like to know if can i post some of your content in my site, In exchange i´l post a backlink and inform the copyrights.
I’m sorry, my content, either text or graphics may not be posted on any other website. You are welcome to put a link, but that is all.
Susan, I’ve nominated you for the Very Inspiring Blog Award. See the nomination at http://t.co/yVtFLWhX. Congratulations!
LaDona
LaDona, thank you so much!
Thank you so much for this. My son cannot get the hang of intervals, due to his Asperger’s. But he LOVES bingo, so this should be great for him!
Thanks! I hope it works well for him.
Susan, another great lesson activity – thank you so much! I love that I can use these as “quickies” at a lesson. I’ve also used some of your games as activities at my monthly class. I hope you’ll do some more interval activities for more advanced students, with othe keys, augmented and diminished intervals, too. Even older students love doing something that isn’t just dry practice. I’ve already printed out this one!
Hi Beverly,
The first version of this game had minor and diminished intervals in various keys, but then when I tested it, I realized I needed to start with an easier version. I really would like to make a more advanced version, and I hope I remember to do it!
Awesome, as usual. I love teaching through games – especially your games. Quick question on this one. How do you use the 8va cards? Am I missing something on this one?
Lorie, the 8va cards are for intervals of an octave. I try to get students to be comfortable reading octaves even if they can’t reach them quite yet. When you call that card, you can call it an 8th/octave so they can learn the term. Does this answer your question?
Yes, that answers it! Thanks! I guess I always thought of 8va as played an octave higher or lower, etc… I don’t have a music degree so I could be totally off on this one!
What a great fast game! I am going to save this one for back to school.
I totally agree that students retain more from games that from worksheets. Though, I have no plans to discontinue theory books! With materials from your site and a couple of other great blogs, we have played a new game each week all summer.The children have loved their time off the bench.I focused mainly on note recognition on the staff and even my youngest students have shown so much progress. I am going to try to play a 5 minute off the bench game each week during the school year. And, we are going to launch our own version of the 1 minute club with varying requirements so some young children can qualify. Your posts on that were the inspiration.
Thank you for your willingness to share your creative projects!!
Whitney, I will also always use theory books, too. You’re right, it takes a balance approach. I should have worded it better!
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I’m so glad to know that you used some of my material this summer, and also some of the excellent things other teachers have posted. I have so many plans of things to make. I hope I can get around to it all!
Hi Susan, This is just what I need for a number of my students. Thank you!
I wonder, though, if there’s a typo on the green card. The interval looks to be a 9th — the bottom note is placed where a D should be, but it has a ledger line through it, making it look like middle C.
Opps, I’d better fix that fast!
Thanks for this appealing interval game. Amazing how many students don’t have these down pat. Hope this game will help. Today is the first day of vacation, so will have a bit more time to laminate, etc.
Carol, so good to hear from you again! Enjoy your vacation.
I’m starting a 4 1/2 year old soon, so I bet I’ll be making a lot of new things for that age.
Susan
Beautiful, thanks AGAIN for ANOTHER wonderful game!
I was wondering if you had a nice polkadot document we could use to make the backs of the cards that might go with the nice colour theme of the Bingo Game. I have already used the green polkadot back for the Rhythm Round About game many times on other cards and I love the backs because otherwise, the students can see through and read the cards ahead of time and then they try to cheat… not so good. 
Anyway, don’t want to give you more work, but if you already have something handy, that would be great! 
Lorraine,
I thought about a back for these cards. The problem is, I made the cards to fit all the way to the edge, and if your printer does not print to the edge, there will be a white border on all the cards that are on the end. However, I will send you a polka dot border to try. If your printer has an option to “print to edge”, that might work. I’ll send it to your email and later I’ll add it to my post.
Have you tried printing on cardstock? That will also keep the cards from showing through, and one package will last you several years!
Thank you so much for your comments!
Susan