This is a great activity for pre-reading students. It’s not meant to get students to perfect or even identify notes on their own. It’s more so that students are exposed to the types of notes & their names. It’s similar to the bunny music matching game if you made it so it matched by color.
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I keep a private Pinterest board of blog project inspo, & this paint stir stick activity was one of the pins I saved, but I didn’t click through to the original project before working on a music version for the blog.
SUPPLIES:
4 colors of construction, printer, or scrapbook paper
Scissors
Glue Stick
Heavy Duty Glue
Marker
4 clothespins
Laminating material or clear contact paper (optional)
Step 1
Cut a long rectangle to act as your base.
Next, cut 2 rectangles out of each color of paper: one to fit on the base paper & one to fit the clothespin. Using a glue stick, glue the larger rectangles to the strip of paper. Trim if needed.
Step 2
Write a note name on the larger piece of paper & write the note on the smaller piece of paper. Repeat for each color.
I’d recommend putting them in ascending order, i.e eight note on top, followed by quarter note, then half note, & whole note on the bottom.
Step 3 (optional)
Optionally, laminate each piece or cover with clear contact paper for durability.
Step 4
Then glue the papers with the notes to the clothespins.
How to play
Have the student match the correct note to the correct name. This is a great way for young students & their parents to practice together.
The student can use the colors as a way to match, and the parents can tell them the note name.
If you use this as a take home activity, make sure the student’s parents know that their student doesn’t need to identify all the notes yet; it’s more of an exposure activity to help the student see that notes have names…..& it should be a fun game!
You can also do this project with rests or other musical symbols.
Or for older students, you can make it with all the notes on the same color paper.
I’d love to see how you use this in your studio! Please show me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or in the comments below!
-Barbara
update: the glue didn’t hold the pieces on the clothespins very well. Would Let me know if you’d like to see a modified version!
Barbara Fischer runs Fischarper, LLC and loves her job as a harpist and private music educator. She enjoys blogging about various aspects of the music field on fischarper.com/blog. For more music resources, check out the Fischarper store. Find out where you can find Barbara on the interwebs here. And you can sign up to receive Fischarper updates by joining the email list.