My 3rd graders like to practice sixteenth note rhythms by playing this board game that I adapted from an old McMillan Music series.
There are other possible ways to play, but I have made this into a big poster. (see below) I stick it to the board and have the students sit close to the board on the floor in 2 teams. One team is the "Beethoven" team, and the other is the "Mozart" team. I use a Beethoven and a Mozart magnet (buy them or make your own!) as markers to move around the poster (it sticks to the board through the posterboard).
My game rules:
1. A student on the first team rolls the die (one dice), and I move the Mozart magnet that number of spaces. If the team lands on a DOT, all students on that team TOGETHER must say that rhythm correctly for a point. I tell them I allow for ONE mistake (i.e. one student messing up or one student not participating). If I see/hear more than one mistake, the team does not get a point. And, if they pick on each other, they lose a point. Or if the other team makes noise to try to mess them up, they lose a point.
2. If the team lands on a whole rest, the die is given to a student on the other team. Either way, point or not, the turn is over, and the Beethoven team rolls. (I let the students pass the die to each other so everyone gets at least one turn to roll.)
3. Play continues until I call "time up." You could play until the end of the board, but I just have them play until time is up, and we go back to the beginning if we get to the end. The team with the most points wins, not the team who gets to the end first.
Like I said, I made this into a poster with 4 12" x 18" posters that I had laminated.
Top left:
Top right:
Bottom left:
Bottom right:
Then, together, they look roughly like this:
If you want to make your own poster(s), you could print out these rhythm cards to add to your poster.
