Rhythm Values for Fish Rhythm Cards

Rhythm Values for Fish Rhythm Cards

My little 5 year old student has enjoyed fishing for rhythm cards. He’s learned the names of all the notes now, and can almost remember the names of the rests. We played the rhythm memory game at our last lesson because he is learning the value of the notes now. Speaking of that memory game, how many teachers think I should make the cards bigger? Another teacher suggested I make some fish cards to go with the ones I posted a few days ago with the note values on them and the fish facing in the opposite direction. This way the student can match the note to the rhythm value with the correct fish facing each other. It seems really simple, but I think it’s going to be fun for a pre-school student. Let me know if it is fun for your pre-school student. I think even beginning first and second graders will like them!

To print, click on the link which will take you to my web site. Then click on “download” and you can print out a free PDF of the cards.

Fish Rhythm Cards

Fish Rhythm Cards

My beginning student wanted to play the fishing game, so I made some rhythm flash cards for him. He had not learned rests yet, but after playing this game, now he knows them!  I changed the color of the fish so they are all a solid color. I thought this would help young and/or distracted children to focus on the notes. Then they looked too plain, so I added the dots.

My little student is bothered by the fact that the dotted half note doesn’t have his own name!  He feels sorry for it. Then he wanted to know why I didn’t make a dotted half rest. Isn’t it funny what children will key on?

I also used these cards with lower elementary level students,  and for them I set a time limit to see how many they could catch and identify in a certain amount of time. Otherwise, we would have spent the whole lesson fishing, which I think was fine with the kids, but not for me because I have a lot of music I want to teach!

The cartoon nature of these cards show they are intended for young children, so I don’t plan to make any with higher note values. However, if you want to play a fishing game with older students, you can use regular flash cards. I suggest a time limit for this, too.

Every day I get emails asking me what program I use to make these fish. I drew these myself in Photoshop.  The reason they look so homemade is because they are! I’m not an artist, so it’s kind of painstaking for me. But I love art and I wish I could really draw.

Rhythm Memory Game

Rhythm Memory Game

I am back from the TMTA convention and I have a lot of new ideas and music reviews to post. I’ll try to do that as I have time, but let me just say that I am very excited about some of new music I heard as well as new ideas for composing and improvising with our students. The Texas convention is 4 days long and it is huge because we are such a big state. 

I went to as many sessions as possible and one I went to was on teaching group lessons. Our presenter was Dr. Lesley Sisterhen McAllister and she had some great ideas for group lessons. Even if we teach private lessons, most of the teachers who read this blog also have groups at some point. One game she mentioned seemed like something my students would enjoy.  It is a memory game and she kindly gave me permission to post it here. I don’t know if I made it exactly like she makes hers, but here is my version for beginning students who have at least learned the basic notes and rests. There are no 8th notes so it can be played with young students.  

I made a PDF with 2 pages. You need to have Adobe Reader installed on your computer to print it.  Using sturdy card stock, print one side; turn your paper over and print the other side.  The program will allow you to specify which page you want to print. To print, click here on Rhythm Memory Game and when it opens, click “preview” and you can print it to enjoy with your students. Laminate it and cut on the dotted lines.

In case you do not know how to play Memory, here are the directions. Arrange the cards with the notes and numbers face down in a 4 X 4 grid. The object of the game is to match a note to its rhythm value in 4-4 meter. The first player turns over two cards. If the note and rhythm match he keeps the cards and plays again. If not, it is the other person’s turn. Play continues until all the cards are gone. The winner is the player with the most cards.

I think this will work in a private lesson, too, with the student either playing the game with you or alone. Personally I’m not very good with this type of  game but I think it is good to help with visual memory. I think I’ll practice before I play it with my students!

I always have teachers ask me how I make the graphics.  I drew these in PhotoShop using 3 layers. The hard part was getting the back and front pages lined up correctly.

Game Board for Measure Mania

measure-maniagameboard_green   

You really don’t need a game board to play Measure Mania, but if you want one, you can print it out if you click the link above.   I thought it would be more interesting for the students if they had some lines to put their cards on, and this it what it turned into. This game board is not on my website, so print it from here if you’re interested. They can put each beat on one line, as my student did in the picture in my last post. I have 6 lines, in case you want to play the game with 6/8 time.

 If you didn’t see my last post with the cards and directions for this game, you can print out the little cards and the directions here. This is a game for students who have a fairly good knowledge of dotted eighth and sixteenth notes.

Below are two different game boards that students have been playing on. I had to decide if I wanted to post the green or the blue. I decided on the green because it matches the wild card better. 

Measure Mania

Measure Mania is a game to reinforce sixteenth notes and dotted eighth notes. I made it for my students who are studying for the Texas State Theory Test, but I think it will be an interesting way for any teacher to make sure her students understand the concept. This game  is meant to be played with students who have a fairly good understanding of dotted eighth notes.  Here are the directions for one student to play. The game can be modified for more than one player.

 Using card stock, print, laminate, and cut out the cards. For individual play, one card will be enough. 

Put the cards in a container. Chose a time signature for the students, such as 4/4.

The student will draw one card at a time with the goal of completing  one measure. However, each beat of the measure will be completed individually on its own line, so the student will not get confused.

This picture shows how the cards are placed. 

If a student draw a cards he cannot use, he discards it. However, he can use them later if he needs them.  As he draws cards, he can move them around the board to use his cards more productively.

After one measure is complete, add up the cards. Each card is worth one point. The cards in the discard pile are worth 2 points, which are subtracted from the total.

Play the game several times and total up the score.  At first they are happy to choose a quarter note, but quickly see that if they draw more 16th notes and rests they have a higher score.

This game can be adapted for group lesson use, but you will need to print out more cards. I used *guided play* with some students so they wouldn’t get frustrated, but I think after a while they will be able to play by themselves.

I used a plain piece of paper as the game board, but I plan to post a game board tomorrow, if all goes well. You don’t really need a game board, but it helps to have a defined place to place the cards. [Update, the game board is posted here.]

You can play this game in 6/8, but you will want to make some cards with more 6/8 rhythms such as a dotted quarter note.

Let me know if this game works for you!

Meet Mighty Dot

Ready for something different? Today’s post, after my serious post yesterday of Keith Snell’s new books, is quite a change. But as piano teachers who teach students from preschool to adult, we’re used to quick changes in directions, aren’t we? If you think of an AP calculus teacher trying to teach a group of kindergarten children numbers, you can get an idea of the range a piano teacher usually has! I spent many hours doing theory at my university, but trying to explain it to children is an art.

Meet Might Dot is another in my series of humorous posters that I made to reinforce a concept:  the dot. This is not a poster for beginners,  but for students who have finished about level 2 or 3. You can also use it with transfer students.

We all know that 6/8 time  is usually felt with 2 beats in the measure, the dotted quarter getting the beat.  We want to explain that to our students in due time, but for the purpose of this poster, I find this works well as an explanation in my studio.

Before I made the poster I did some reference work in the Oxford Dictionary of Music. There actually is an entry called “dot”.

Shamrock Rhythms

Shamrock Rhythms is a game to find the missing rhythm value in a measure. There are two pages to print out, a game board and the circled shaped cards. Each measure in the cards has a note left out. There are two measures for each note value, but you can play a quick version and use one card per note.

Print both pages on card stock. Laminate and cut out the circle cards. They would look cute printed on green card stock, but the light green shamrocks will not show up. Laminate the game board.

Place the cards upside down in the middle of the shamrock on the circle.  The student will draw a card and place it on the note or notes that are missing in the measure. (Notice that in 4 of the cards, one beat is missing and the student may put it on  either 2 eights or the quarter note. It doesn’t matter which one.) When all the cards are placed, the game is over.

.Of course, there can be many variations. Maybe you can print out 2 or more game boards and play this at a group lesson. You could use a stop watch and let students race. Or you could see who can cover their notes first. There are endless possibilities, which is how I like piano games to be because we have students with so many different ability levels.

FYI, you may notice that I have 2 cards  that have empty measures. Those are for the whole note and since they are the same, you can omit one if you wish.

On the Texas State Theory Test, there is a question for students to fill in the missing note. I hope this will give us some early extra help for that on next year’s test.

If I get a good response to this game, I will make one for the next holiday using rests.  I am also working on one in 6/8 time.

Stand Up, Sit Down Activity from Cecilly

This is a fun, helpful activity from Cecilly, and you don’t have to print anything out. Here are her directions:

Using a short piece or rhythmic pattern, (8 measures or so) choose what you want to have the student focus on (a specific recurring rhythm value, simple pattern, rest, etc.), and then explain  that every time you get to the item of focus you’ll change your body position.

For example, say the focus will be half notes.  Sing the words or count the rhythm. At the first half note, stand up (and stay up) continuing with the words/counting until the next half note when you’ll sit down (at stay down) until the next half where you’ll stand up again, etc. etc.

This creates a fun up and down movement activity and really gets the student to pay attention to the rhythm.

Cecilly said:

“I sometimes do this activity when I want the student to focus on
rests. We stand/sit on each rest. Sometimes I’ll just put the CD on
and we’ll respond this way simply as we listen to the music. Other
times we’ll chant the words. There are lots of possibilities.”

I have actually done this kind of thing with my students before and it is a lot of fun. The other day a beginning student kept missing (over and over again) a certain note. Since there were only about 5 notes in the song I knew I had to do something different, and quickly. I told him were were going to stand every time that note appeared.  In my version, we stood up and sat down immediately. Up and down we went, laughing and having fun. Amazingly, he didn’t miss that note again. It’s just a matter of narrowing the focus and it really works!

Thanks, Cecilly, for another very helpful activity.

If you do something quick and easy that really worked and you would like to share it, send me an email and I’ll post it here.

Another Revision to Counting Up the Mountain

I’m improving Counting Up the Mountain one more time. This makes how many revisions, 3? This time I’m revising the cards that go along with the game.

 One of the teachers who has used this game sent me some new ideas for cards with rests and some other things to go along with the game,  and she gave me permission to post them.  Before there were only 2 pages of cards to this game, but with her additions there are now 4 pages.  If  you printed these out previously, save some ink and just print the last 2 pages.  I always thought the game needed some more cards, so thanks to Janet for sending these ideas to me. I added the little tree on the whole and half rests so we can tell which side is up or down. 

 This is a game for students who are just learning the rhythmic value of whole, dotted half, half, quarter notes and rests in 4/4 time. The teacher holds up a card or the student draws a card and moves 4 places for whole notes, 3 places for a dotted half, and so on. It’s a quick game the teacher or parent can play with the student or several beginners can play together.  You can probably think of other ways to use the game board. Hopefully the new cards will add to the fun. The little smiley faces at the end of the cards are tokens, in case you need them.

Rhythm Hearts

I am re-posting Rhythm Heart Beats and More Rhythm Hearts in case you would like to use them this week because  they look very “Valentine-ish.”

I first published them in August,and if you scroll back to then, or look in the Rhythm category on the right, you can read how I use them to teach rhythmic dictation. If you don’t have time to go back and read those posts, here is a quick review. The Kodaly Method teaches the difference in beat and rhythm by using a “heart beat” as an example of a steady beat. Rhythm is “the way the words go” and eighth notes are “two sounds on one beat.” When I used to teach in  a group setting I would use a felt board,  but now I teach individual lessons, so I made these worksheets. If anyone would like me to elaborate on how to teach rhythm to children, let me know and I’ll do a longer post on it.

Young children and beginners can use the first sheet,  with one measure, and older students will be able to take 2 measure dictation. Don’t let your students learn how to play the piano without knowing how to take rhythmic and melodic dictation. You never know what they may want to do with their music education in the future. Even if they haven’t learned to play 8th notes in their piano music, they are fully capable of learning the concept!

Rhythm Match Up Cards in 6/8

Today  I am posting the cards  to play Cecilly’s  Rhythm Match Up Game  in 6/8 meter. The time signature is not hard for students to feel and play, but sometimes they don’t see it on the page. Have you ever had students practice 6/8 meter all week in 4/4 time? Or half the piece in 4/4 and the other in 6/8? Sometimes that happens! Maybe this game will help students not make that mistake.

Here are the rules to the Rhythm Match Up Game from Cecilly. The cards from other meters were posted Feb. 4.

Objective: to correctly match up the rhythm patterns with their
corresponding time signature in 1 min. or less.

To Play: On a table or surface on one side of the playing area, place
the time signature cards face up. At the other end of the playing
area, on the floor, randomly place the rhythm pattern cards face
down. The player stands in the middle. At “go”, start the timer and
the player grabs a rhythm card, runs to the table and places it
beside it’s corresponding time signature card. Player then goes to
get another rhythm card, and so on until time is up or all cards have
been placed. After time is up, check to see that all cards have been
placed correctly. If not, help the student make corrections. Then
take all the cards from one time signature pile and have the student
lay out in a 4 meas. pattern to clap and count. Repeat with the
other pile of cards.

Rhythm Time Match-Up Game

This Game by Cecilly™ called Rhythm Time Match Up will help students recognize meter by looking at rhythm patterns. I look forward to playing it with my students. I made cards for 4/4 and 3/4 meters. The first 2 cards are easier than the last two, so print out what you need. Then laminate if you desire, cut them out, and have fun!

Here are the directions in Cecilly’s words:

RHYTHM TIME MATCH-UP RACE:

Materials: 2 time signature cards (3/4 and 4/4), 8 rhythm pattern
cards with 4 in 4/4 time and 4 in 3/4 time, 1 min. timer.

Objective: to correctly match up the rhythm patterns with their
corresponding time signature in 1 min. or less.

To Play: On a table or surface on one side of the playing area, place
the time signature cards face up. At the other end of the playing
area, on the floor, randomly place the rhythm pattern cards face
down. The player stands in the middle. At “go”, start the timer and
the player grabs a rhythm card, runs to the table and places it
beside it’s corresponding time signature card. Player then goes to
get another rhythm card, and so on until time is up or all cards have
been placed. After time is up, check to see that all cards have been
placed correctly. If not, help the student make corrections. Then
take all the cards from one time signature pile and have the student
lay out in a 4 meas. pattern to clap and count. Repeat with the
other pile of cards.

Feel free to change up the time signatures to include 2/4, 6/8, etc.
Just make sure you have rhythm pattern cards to match those meters.

Quarter Note Hunt

Cecilly has a new game called Quarter Note Hunt and I’m posting the directions today. This is such a simple activity and so easy to prepare, that it will be easy to play at a lesson.  It might be good to have this activity ready when lessons start to drag a little. Boys, especially, need to move around some. 

 The picture above is a set of cards [ quarter-note-hunt ] to go with her game  in case you would like to print them out.  Be sure to print in landscape format. I hope these cards are  what Cecilly had in mind.  It will also be very easy to just  cut up index cards and draw them yourself.

This game can be played with any rhythm value, but the following directions are for quarter and half notes. I went ahead and put in some other note values on my cards, too,  in case you want to play it when they have learned more notes.   Here is the game in her words:

Quarter Note Hunt

Materials: Timer, a basket, and several small cards folded in half with a quarter note drawn on the outside (vary the stem direction)and 1 short dash drawn on the inside. The card is to sit with the open ended side down and the folded side up (like a triangle). The note is on the side facing toward you and the dash on the inside so when the card is flipped up, the dash is revealed.  Also, make several half notes.

Set up: Place the cards all over the room where they can be easily seen, mixing up quarters and halves. I have mine on the floor, on the shelves, on my desk, in the corner of the piano keyboard, on my table, etc.

Objective: to retrieve all of the quarter notes in the time allotted (30 sec).

To Play: at “go” the student begins to hunt for the quarter notes while I play some exciting music on the piano. For each card that is found, the student should bring it to a central location (on the floor, in a basket, on the table, whatever you’ve chosen). So this becomes a back and forth kind of race against the clock. When time is up, stop playing. The student stops hunting and counts all of the quarter notes he has gathered. Take a moment to have him lift the front flaps up to reveal the dash and thus the number of pulses for each quarter.

Variation: Play again, but have student gather all the half notes. Then after play, allow the student to arrange his notes into rhythm patterns to clap and count/play and count on a given piano key.

As new rhythm values are introduced, I just keep adding new cards and having the student race to gather the newest value first. This helps them visually differentiate between all the different rhythm values.

Have fun.
Cecilly

Thanks again, Cecilly!

Don’t forget to draw the dash and dashes on the inside. I might draw hearts above the dash (one heart  for each beat) because I use the Kodaly system method of teaching beat and rhythm.

Rhythm in the Grid with Eighth Notes

Notice there is no holiday theme to this handout, Rhythm in the Grid with Eighth Notes? That’s because I thought I posted it back in the summer. I can only find the one I made with 16th notes so I’m posting this now. Maybe if you have a student who has trouble understanding dotted quarters, this graphic will help. Sometimes you have to try different ways to explain things because everyone learns differently.  

There have been many helpful hints posted in the comments section. For cutting the Rhythm Pizza on foam board, kitchen shears has been suggested. Another teacher saves on printing by putting worksheets in a clear sheet protector and using  a dry erase marker. It can be erased and used over and over. Thanks for the great ideas.

Musical Christmas Lights

I have been putting off posting Musical Christmas lights this because I never felt it was finished. It is a bingo type game and students can win by covering three of the same color or you can play “black out”, depending on how much time you have.  The sheet probably has some things your beginning students don’t know such as the natural sign and the 16th note. In that case, for my beginning students, I’m just going to describe what the symbol looks like when I call out the name.  My idea is that if they start hearing the names of some of these symbols,  they will remember them better when they actually get to it.

I didn’t make any teacher cards for this, but I did make a sheet of 40 little ornaments with the symbols on it that you can cut out and either use as game chips, or to draw and call out the symbol.  If anyone is really interested in that and wants to do a lot of cutting, let me know and I’ll send it to you personally in an email.

I have been working on a project for students to write their own melody inside a Christmas train. It is taking me a lot longer than I thought. It seemed like such a good idea when I sketched it out but getting it into Photoshop has turned out to be a real time waster. If I have another sleepless night, I may get it finished before Christmas. It is for beginning students who are still in the pre-reading stage. 

Yesterday my students really enjoyed Peppermint Notes. I left off the line for Middle C. Did anyone notice? Maybe you can draw it in yourself with a red pen. The train you see in the photo is battery powered and cost $1.00. I let students play with it while they wait and for such a simple toy, they have a lot of fun.  It is what gave me the idea for a Christmas train composing sheet. My philosopy is that young children take piano for the train ride, not for the destination. That’s the opposite of how adults and a lot of teachers look at it. I just love teaching children!

Rhythm Pizza on Foam Board

 

I posted Rhythm Pizza on July 29, if you want to go back and read about it.

Today I decided to put my 4 pages of Rhythm Pizza on foam board. Since that has been one of the most downloaded pages, I thought I’d share my attempts.

My young students love to sit and work this puzzle while they wait for their lesson or for their parents to pick them up. But it was not holding up very well. I could have just printed out another copy, but I decided to make it easier to play with.  

I glued the pages to foam board and then tried to cut them out. (I left the whole note page letter size so it would be bigger.) I found that circles are very hard to cut out of foam board. About half way through I thought no matter how much I had to pay, it was better to buy teacher materials than to print them out for free. I broke my husband’s Exacto knife, tried other knives, and finished up with a box cutter. I found the straight lines a lot easier, and when I saw the results I thought it was worth it.  You can see in the picture how much more fun it will be for student to play with use it.

By the way, the rhythm pizza really works to explain fractions to children who haven’t learned them in school yet.

UPDATE: Putting this on foam board is one of my best ideas. My students loved it and played with it a lot more. If you like Rhythm Pizza, I highly recommend you try putting it on foam board. It has been suggested to cut the circles with kitchen shears. Let us know if this works for you!

Mountain Counting Again

Back in July I posted a simple game to practice beginning note values. Students liked to play it, but thought it was too short. It also looked pretty sloppy and the clip art mountain climber didn’t go with the style of the game. So I did it over, making it a little neater and minus the boy. Now it is a longer game, but  still can be quickly played at a lesson. When things get intense in a lesson with little ones, move away from the piano and play a game. Cards for this game were posted in July, under the *Rhythm* category.

Counting Up the Mountain

Rhythm Circle with 8th Notes

I have some elementary students who haven’t learned 16th notes yet, so I didn’t want to use the Rhythm Circle I posted below. Now I can use this Rhythm Circle for 8th Notes.

Some students need to experience a new concept in different ways, and this is just one more way to explain note values. As I posted on my web site, this works best if it is a guided lesson, with the teacher explaining as the student draws. Later you can ask the student to fill it out with stems going down. Drawing stems with flags going down is usually a problem for students.

Rhythm Circle revisited

I decided my worksheet Rhythm Circle used too much ink, so I did it over this morning. I took out the background, which made it more interesting to look at,  but not really worth it in a quick handout such as this.  I also changed the colors some,  because I was never happy with my choices.

I’m working on posting this same worksheet for younger students, using 8th notes as the smallest value. I’m going to do the same thing with Rhythm Grid. Many of us are starting new students at this time and we need some more elementary worksheets.

Whole and Half Rests

When I was a little girl learning piano, I always got things mixed up. I didn’t understand time signatures, notes were nice but I never used them,  and I couldn’t keep whole and half rests straight. That was until I thought of a way to remember them. Years later I was so disappointed to find that everyone else used the same method to distinguish whole and half rests! I thought it was my own little thing. 

I’ve always taught my students this way to remember the difference in whole and half rests, drawing little flowers and hats in their theory book. One day I decided to make a poster I could give to beginners or anyone who got them mixed up.  I had lots of fun making it. I drew everything myself for this poster, so  I can’t blame the clip art on anyone else! Let me know if you find any mistakes. Whole and Half Rest Poster