Fun ways to… Teach little kids note-reading
Particularly with younger kids, there are plenty of note-reading games that I play that aren’t simply about naming the notes. The shape that the notes make and the relationship between them is just as important (if not more so) for music-reading, as simply naming them as A, B, C etc. Here are three of the games that my younger students love playing!
Whiskers or cage?
Little kids love this one! The idea is to encourage kids to notice whether a note is across a line or in a space, even if they can’t read the note itself. If the note is across a line, they need to touch their cheeks as if they have whiskers. If the note is in a space, they need to put their forearms above and below their head, as if their head is in a cage! (They basically need to pretend their head is the notehead, and create the line with their arms either around or across their head). This has been the cause of many giggles in lessons, and really gets kids to notice whether notes are across lines or in spaces.
Note dot-to-dot
All kids love a dot-to-dot! Before playing a piece of music, I often encourage my students to connect the noteheads (as in a dot-to-dot) and then describe to me the shape it makes. This encourages kids to take note of the shape of the melody before they start playing.
Same, step or skip
This game is about recognising the relationship between notes. For this you need a set of flashcards with two notes on each, which you can download in the “Useful Freebies” section of our store. The student doesn’t need to be able to identify the notes - just the relationship between them. The game is to organise the flashcards into 3 piles as quickly as possible - one pile for notes which are the same, a second for notes which “step” (ie an interval of a second), and a third pile for notes which “skip” (ie an interval of a third). Try it a few times and see if the student can beat their time!
