Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to play music games with your students that solidify their music their understanding. Games are a great way to get students actually involved in the learning process and playing games is a great way to determine whether they really understand the concept! Any lesson I’ve done with a student where we played games is a lesson where I know the student hand fun and learned or solidified something! Most of these Valentine music games will work with piano students, flute students, violin or string students, and some even in the music classroom.
Jelly Hearts Rhythm Dictation
Supplies:
- Jelly hearts (I purchased these at Walmart.
- Flexible straws (Bend the flexible part and then cut the bottom half of these in half.) You’ll havea set of short straight straws and a set of short bendable straws.
- 1 flexible straw cut into small 1/4 inch pieces. These will be the dots for dotted quarter notes
To play:
Give students about 10 jelly hearts, 10 sets of cut straws (5 straight and 5 bent), plus 3-4 uncut straws (for the bar lines) and a few of the very small 1/4 inch straw segments. Ask them to insert half of their straight straws into the jelly hearts to make quarter notes and then the other half into the jelly hearts to make eighth notes.
Start by playing a one measure rhythm with just quarter notes. Ask them to write the rhythm they hear. Then proceed to dictate one measure rhythms that also include dotted quarter notes and eighths.
If you’d like to also have half notes included, have your students insert a straw through the center of a few jelly hearts and then pull it back through to remove the middle. Of course, this will work better if you have a bigger straw, but they’ll get the idea that the notes with the holes in it are half notes.
Eat the candy!
Valentine Melodic Dictation
Melodic dictation seems like a difficult activity for only more advanced students. But you can play this with beginners as well!To play with beginners, play all quarter notes and simply have them listen to the direction of notes and place their candy or erasers in thedirection that they hear the notes going.
Supplies:
- Jelly hearts or heart erasers (I found a set of 60 in the Target dollar aisle)
- Music staff (Download all clefs here including treble, bass, alto, tenor, and grand staff)
To play:
Give each student a music staff (or you can omit the staffto just indicate direction with the hearts) and a number of jellyhearts or erasers. If you are using a staff, tell students where to place their first heart. Then, play a 4 note melody using just steps or repeated notes asking students tonotate what they hear with their hearts. Continue with this activity making sure that students are getting at least 3 motives correct before you make the melody harder. To make melodies more difficult, include skips in the tonic triad, notes outside of a 5 finger pattern, and then sharp and flatted notes if appropriate. See Flats and Sharps below for instructions on making flats and sharps.
Eat the candy!
Sharp and Flat Fun
Here’s a fun activity to help students differentiate both how sharps and flats look and how they sound.
Supplies:
- Music Staff – laminated is best (Download all clefs here including treble, bass, alto, tenor, and grand staff)
- Jelly hearts
- Twizzlers pull n’ peel candy – cut 1 1/4 inch segments then put into a plastic bag. It’s important to keep these fresh as they’ll stick together (when making the flats) better.
To play:
Give each student a laminated music staff, 2 jelly hearts and a 1 1/4 inch segment of Twizzlers. Tell the student to put their 2 jelly hearts on the same line or space on the staff, but to leave room between the 2 hearts. Play 2 notes, the second either one half step up or one half step down. The student should make a sharp or a flat out of their Twizzler candy and place it in front of the second heart. The Twizzler candy will stick together, so just have them squeeze it together as in the picture.
Eat the candy!
IntervalValentine Music Game
This activity will help students identify and notate intervals.
Supplies:
- Music Staff – laminated is best (Download all clefs here including treble, bass, alto, tenor, and grand staff)
- Jelly hearts or heart erasers
To play:
Give each student a music staff. Play a note on the piano and ask them to put their first jelly heart on that note on the staff. Then, cover your hands so that students can’t see them and play the first note, then a note that is an interval above that note. Ask the student to put their 2nd jelly heart on the correct line or space.
Eat the candy!
Valentine Music Word Game
Download the Valentine Music Words if you don’t have them already! You can use these for this game, to give as valentines, or to decorate your studio.
Supplies:
- Valentine Music Wordsor NEW: Alto Clef Valentine Music Words
- Call bell(I use this so much during group lessons!)
Invite two students to stand behind a table with the call bell between them. Instruct them to keep their hands behind their back until they are reaching to ring the call bell. Show them one of the Valentine Music Words and the student to hit the bell and answer immediately with the correct word or phrase gets to keep the card. The student with the most cards wins.
White Key Note Name Game
There are so many ways to play this white key note name game!
Supplies:
- A heart eraser (I don’t really want to risk getting my piano keys sticky!) and another eraser (different color or shape)
- A piano keyboard – use either the real piano or these printable piano keyboards.
- A music dice with letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G on it. Since there are 7 letters, I put F/B on the same side of the dice when I made mine.)
To play Game 1:
Give your student an eraser and ask him or her to put their eraser on the note that you call out as fast as possible.
To play Game 2:
Start with both erasers at the bottom of the keyboard. Take turns rolling the dice and advance your eraser up to the next closest note that corresponds to the eraser. Whoever gets to the top first wins!
Shape It
It seems that students always have trouble knowing how to draw a treble clef, among other musical symbols. This is a great game to help them think through how to make these musical shapes.
Supplies:
- Valentines candy corn
To play:
If you are doing a group lesson, divide your students into two teams. Call out a musical symbol (listed below) andgive points to which team makes a recognizable symbol the fastest and the most well made (so give out 2 sets of points for every symbol). Symbols might include:
- Treble clef
- Bass clef
- Music staff
- Sharp, Flat, or Natural
- Dynamics: Forte, mezzo forte, mezzo piano, piano
- Accents
- Hearts (you gotta throw some valentine shapes in there)
- Heart with an arrow through it
Mystery Message Competition
These free Music Valentine Candy Hearts can be used for studio decor or student valentines, but also make a great game!
Supplies:
- Music Valentine Candy Hearts
To Play:
Gather 2 students (3 is better!)Show them a card and see who names the mystery message first. The person who gets it correct can keep the card and then move to compete against the next student. Students can continue to shift so that they are always competing against someone new. (Never let the student who gets it correctstayto compete against everyone. That can get discouraging for students who are slower at naming notes.)
Have fun with these Valentine Music Games and let me know if you think of other variations!
Read More:
- Group Piano Teaching Strategies and Gamesby Christopher Fisher
- Penguin Note Match
- Start Giving Super-Charged Hybrid Piano Group Lessons
