Occasionally, WonderGirl forgets the note names on the staff. She's only been reading music for a few weeks, after all! I had planned on doing this a while ago, but only just got around to it today. Now, my super awesome mom actually had a huge staff on the floor in her music classroom back in the day, made out of loooong strips of Velcro - and I was lucky enough to inherit it when she retired. But I wasn't able to locate it in the basement today so I had to settle for vinyl tape (that I was running out of, hence the super short lines).
For the record, I've used the Velcro strips and it's fantastic. But this sufficed, and masking tape does as well. Then we used a bean bag to place on the staff. The possibilities for using this are endless, but I'll just tell you how we used it today.
First, I'd call out a note and she'd put the bean bag on it as fast as she could. Then, she called out a note for me - but I would try to trick her and put it on the wrong note occasionally, so she had to make sure it was in the right spot.
To finish up, we got silly and she tossed the bean bag onto the staff and had to tell me what note it had landed on. And why yes, she IS wearing a superhero cape - which is not the most shocking thing she's already worn today (in public, nonetheless).
Another good beginner game would be to cut out paper notes with the names on them, and have the child put them in the right place. Hrm... I think I'll try that next time. It's so easy and fast, and the clean-up is a breeze (WG already tore the pieces off and is now playing with her huge tape ball). I'm sure we'll revisit this again - but this was a good way to start. Who knew music theory could be so fun? ;)
2 comments:
I do this too, but I like to make the staff big enough for the kids to be the notes. I usually just do the treble staff plus a few ledger lines, though, so it's easier to fit in my teaching room. Sometimes I have them move around on the staff and play the notes they're standing on.
That's awesome.
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