Rhythm Star (a rhythm reading and independence game!)
Looking for a great beginning of the year activity that'll get some of your older kids involved?
In "Rhythm Star", students will see eight boxes stacked vertically. The box on the left is for their left hand, the box on the right is for their right hand. In each box will be a series of dots, either filled in, or blank.
A dot that is filled in will be one sound to the beat, a dot that is left blank will be no sound (read as a rest).
Students will read the rhythm from the top to bottom (vertically) with assigned instruments on their left hand and right hand. For this activity, Artie's stickstations come in handy, so have the students use a pad as their left implement and a tambourine as their right.
Read down the rhythms from top to bottom, and advance the slides once the class masters the rhythms with their left and right hand simultaneously! As the students progress through the game, there are 5 levels of difficulty
Quarter notes
Eighth notes
Quarter rests
Poly-rhythms (this one is FUN!)
Triplets
Play this with some music in the background, either an instrumental track 100-120bpm or some of their favorite pop music as they play along and master the rhythms only to continue to advance in the level.
The class is awarded 50 points each time an example is playing correctly in unison. A fun and competitive way for your younger kids to practice sight reading rhythms!