This is a great game for teaching cross-curricular
activities of music and language. Teach the
kids the target English, for example numbers
(remember, teaching 1 to 12 is better than
1 to 10 as it means you can easily jump to
telling the time!!). On the piano, start
with middle C (ask a music teacher!), and
place a small sticker on it. Label this sticker
"1". Go to the next white note,
D, and put a sticker with the number "2"
on it. Keep going until you have 12 white
keys labelled 1 to 12. If you are teaching
colours or animals, simply label each key
with a different colour or animal!
1. Split the kids into groups. Each group
splits into 2.
2. One half of one group goes to the back
of the class. The other half stand by the
paino at the front.
3. Start the stopwatch
4. The kids at the back read out a series of numbers, in the target language (of
course!), from a list that you give them (see below).
5. The kids at the front play these numbers
on the piano. i.e. if they hear "3"
they hit the key with "3" written
on it.
6. The team members listen and if they can
say the title of the tune they get 10 points.
Stop the stopwatch!
7. Choose a new group and repeat from
step
2.
In the class, you could even
split
the activity in 2, the kids at the
back read
the numbers out, the kids at the front
write
them down on the board, then they have
a
go at playing them. For animals, food,
colours
etc. it's best to prepare some picture
cards
in advance!
During the game, if anyone speaks their native
language, it's plus 5 seconds!
At the end of the game the team with the
quickest time gets an extra 10 bonus points.
The stopwatch is very important to add tension
to the game!
Want to try yourself? Have a go with the
Flash version at the top of this page! Choose
a subject (either numbers, colours or animals).
You then hear a word, move your mouse
over the correct piano "key", then
move it away to hear the next note! Have
a couple of goes and see if you can guess
the 3 songs! If you don't play an instrument,
this is a great way to learn! You could also
use this software in class. Put the kids
in groups on different computers and see
which group is quickest to recognise each
song!
The list of notes you prepare before. Ask
someone musical to help you write down some
famous tunes (make sure the kids will know
them!!), in the format useable for the game.
The "musical scores" for above
are:
1 5 432 8 5 432 8 5 4342
yellow red red red pink blue red blue
pink
red red pink green black
dog dog dog penguin mouse mouse penguin kangaroo
kangaroo fish fish dog
Did you figure out what songs they were?
The best thing about it is that it teaches
language and musical skills together.
Let me know how you got on!
Richard
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