Games to Teach Musical Notes & Their Beats

Musical Note Hopscotch

• Draw a hopscotch game on a sidewalk or make one indoors on the floor using masking tape. Draw musical notes or beats inside the hopscotch blocks, such as a whole note in one block and the number "4" in another block for the number of beats to a whole note. The hopscotch game should contain all the notes; dotted half, whole notes, quarter, half, eighth and sixteenth notes. Fill in the remaining hopscotch blocks with the number of beats. To play, a student tosses a bean bag and hops to the block where the bag landed. The student names the note if the block contains a beat number or says the number of beats if a block contains a note name.

Name That Note

• Divide the classroom into teams to play a musical game of name that note. The teacher plays a note on a keyboard or a recorder while students count beats by clapping or tapping their toes. Students guess the note by counting the beats, such as whole notes receive four beats, dotted half notes are three beats, half notes are held for two beats and a quarter note is held for one beat. Teams take turns guessing the note. If a team guesses incorrectly, the next team gets a chance to name that note. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Note Match

• Make three sets of flash cards to play a game of note match. Make one set of cards with pictures of the six musical notes, another set of cards with the number of beats and a third set of cards with the name of each note. The notes are whole notes with four beats, dotted half with three beats, half note with two beats, quarter is one beat, an eighth note equals 1/2 beat and a sixteenth note is 1/4 beat. Place all the cards face up in three rows on a table. Students take turns matching the picture, the name and the beats of the notes.

Musical Twister

• Use a traditional Twister game to teach notes and beats. Assign note beats and names to the colors on the Twister game. You can play the game with red for whole and half notes, yellow for dotted half, blue equals quarter and eighth notes and green for the sixteenth note. Write the names and beats on the colored circles on the game using a permanent marker. Spin the wheel and call out the name or the beat of a note. Kids place a hand or a foot on the corresponding picture of the note.