Not exactly a new find, this fun activity can be easily discovered from a swift Google search if you're on the hunt to teach and assess your pupil's awareness of key positions. It is suitable for those struggle to entrench where C, D, E etc. are located without embarking on the mundane route of worksheets and countless recitations.
I have tested it on my piano kids and they love it! I often get requests to play it again despite my intention to only do once so we could move on to other things. Some even asked if we could have this at the start of our next lesson. Most importantly, this game injects some good ol' fun into ensuring my students practice remembering the note letter names of piano keys!
For those whose challenge are impulsive students who relish shooting answers that are not well-thought, this game is aptly effective in ensuring they contemplate their responses proper. A wrong position on the keyboard would bring them back to their previous spot and slow their "run" toward the finish line.
Objective:
To identify key positions on the piano
To learn about keyboard names
Directions:
Take one token to represent the teacher and another for the student. Tokens can be erasers, coins, buttons so long as they can fit nicely within the white keys.
Put the two tokens on each end of the piano. The student will start from the left while teacher from the right.
Each player randomly chooses a letter from the musical alphabet. Suppose the student has "D". He/she must then move the token to the D key nearest to the token.
If a player places the token incorrectly, the token moves back to its previous spot and the next player has the turn.
The finish line is on Middle C key so whoever crosses over the line first wins.
Bonus:
Now herein lies the slight modification: The Decision Roulette! This is a free app that you saves you the tedious work of creating a spinner or lugging a stack of flash cards to every lesson.
So give it a go and watch your students learn through play!
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