"I Have, Who Has?" Game for Recorders
I'm writing this blog post while looking out my window at the gigantic willow tree in my backyard. That's right...I actually have a backyard now! Yay! My husband and I moved into our house last weekend and I am super pumped about it. We have already replaced the not-so-attractive red carpet, green linoleum, and most of the parquet with some pretty, dark wood laminate and I feel like the design possibilities are endless. The move, my sister's new baby, and the fact that I broke my baby toe all contribute to the lack of blog posts in July. Also, I really needed a break from school and I still do! I'm not quite ready to go full blast into planning for September so I thought I'd share a game I created a few months ago but never got around to writing about. Click here to see where I first mentioned my "I Have, Who Has?" fail.
I had seen this game floating around on Pinterest and thought I would adapt it to use with my recorder students. I found some free frames from Clip Art by Carrie and got to work designing my own game. It took a long time which is why I was so annoyed when I didn't attach the file to my computer to print at school.
Most of my students were comfortable playing BAG and whole notes and half notes which is why I focused on only those notes and rhythms in this activity. Since I played this with different classes I had to make sure I knew how many students were in each class so that I could randomly hand out the appropriate number of cards and still have the game link back to the beginning. I always check to see who gets the "whole note B" card and they begin and I make sure that I get the final card. When the game is done I keep the "used" cards separate from the extra cards. That way I know which cards to add or subtract for the next class. Yes, some organization is required but I solved my problem by including a handy-dandy code on the bottom of the cards to help me quickly put them back in order for the next class.
To play this game, one child starts and says "I have" and they play the top pattern on their card. They then say "Who has?" and they play the bottom pattern on their card. The students listen carefully to the "Who has?" pattern and the child who has the matching pattern will say "I have" and play the top pattern (which matches the bottom pattern the previous student played) and will then say "Who has?" and play their bottom pattern. This game continues until everyone has played.
Next time I will make sure we read and play all the cards as a class before handing them out to individual students. I gave the students a bit of time to practice and any student who was unsure what to play came out in the hallway and I secretly showed them how to play their card. During the game, I would circulate and help students who needed it.
The game pretty well took up the whole 40 minute period. It would probably have gotten easier the next time we played. The students were really focused and it gave me an opportunity to assess who could successfully sightread their cards. What I really liked was that the game got off track but the students were able to figure out what went wrong and fix it themselves!
Click here to grab the game!
I had seen this game floating around on Pinterest and thought I would adapt it to use with my recorder students. I found some free frames from Clip Art by Carrie and got to work designing my own game. It took a long time which is why I was so annoyed when I didn't attach the file to my computer to print at school.
Most of my students were comfortable playing BAG and whole notes and half notes which is why I focused on only those notes and rhythms in this activity. Since I played this with different classes I had to make sure I knew how many students were in each class so that I could randomly hand out the appropriate number of cards and still have the game link back to the beginning. I always check to see who gets the "whole note B" card and they begin and I make sure that I get the final card. When the game is done I keep the "used" cards separate from the extra cards. That way I know which cards to add or subtract for the next class. Yes, some organization is required but I solved my problem by including a handy-dandy code on the bottom of the cards to help me quickly put them back in order for the next class.
To play this game, one child starts and says "I have" and they play the top pattern on their card. They then say "Who has?" and they play the bottom pattern on their card. The students listen carefully to the "Who has?" pattern and the child who has the matching pattern will say "I have" and play the top pattern (which matches the bottom pattern the previous student played) and will then say "Who has?" and play their bottom pattern. This game continues until everyone has played.
Next time I will make sure we read and play all the cards as a class before handing them out to individual students. I gave the students a bit of time to practice and any student who was unsure what to play came out in the hallway and I secretly showed them how to play their card. During the game, I would circulate and help students who needed it.
The game pretty well took up the whole 40 minute period. It would probably have gotten easier the next time we played. The students were really focused and it gave me an opportunity to assess who could successfully sightread their cards. What I really liked was that the game got off track but the students were able to figure out what went wrong and fix it themselves!
Click here to grab the game!
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