My name is Tina Morgan, and Lindsay invited me to do a guest blog post. This is my 27th year of teaching, and I frequently create new activities to keep everything fun for ME! My first 7 years, I taught grades K-6. I then spent 13 years teaching only 5th & 6th graders before transferring to my current school as the violin teacher for grades 2-5. Four years ago I moved into the general music position and now teach Pre-K-5, so it’s been an adjustment learning to deal with the really young ones!
I thought I would share a fun activity I created for my kindergarten students.
I bought these boxes at the Dollar Tree. There are 4 designs and I bought 2 of each. I used them to make a game for my Kindergarten students, who can read 4-beat rhythm patterns using quarter notes and quarter rests.
In a Word
document, I created 6 hearts with rhythm patterns on them. I used clip art from Dancing Crayons to
create the rhythm patterns.
I printed
the hearts on card stock, cut out the hearts, and then laminated them using my
little laminator that I bought from Amazon last summer. I’m not sure how I’ve lived without it for so
long! The laminator at my school was
broken for ages, and the film isn’t as sturdy as the sheets I use in my small
machine. For small jobs, it’s perfect!
Grab these hearts for FREE here.
This year I
am lucky – my largest Kindergarten class has only 20 students! For some classes, I can put the students in
pairs to play the game. Other classes
may have a few groups of 3. Each group
has a box containing the rhythm hearts.
The students take turns finding the rhythm pattern that I say and clap,
then put the heart in their box.
What are your favorite activities to practice rhythm reading during Valentine's week?
I really liked reading this article on valentine’s rhythm boxes. Thanks for sharing it here. In my son’s Phoenix kindergarten, their teacher also organized great valentine activities. All kids had a great time doing those activities.
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