Description
Need to blitz note values and introduce rhythms into your children’s lesson? Knowing note value names, rhythms along with their durations are pivotal to our kids’ progress. Note value recognition is considered to be crucial to laying the foundations to sight reading.
Unsurprisingly, I find that one teaching strategy isn’t always enough to help solidify these theory basics and connect them aurally.
This is why I am giving you two strategies in one pack!
So, the first strategy is a gorgeous interactive video, The Gingerbread Boy.
Indeed, this video actually works really well combined with the second strategy, the Note Who Felt Forgotten, (a memorable and moving story introducing note values so that you will never forget your rests again!)
Amazingly, the Gingerbread Boy story is an absolute favourite with children, partly because most of them already know the story. Instead of animals and people chasing the Gingerbread Boy, the Note Values come alive. Cheeky Stringosaurus appears at the end to ‘help’ the Gingerbread Boy… but will he eat him?
Start with the good Gingerbread Boy with the video and clap the note values. Then choose a string to play them on pizzicato and then arco.
Next, have The Note that Felt Forgotten at the ready. This is just brilliant for reminding everyone that just because a rest is silent, he still exists and has feelings! Ha ha
And so that very week the Quarter Note's cousin arrived. "Hi" said Quarter Note But there was no answer.
Furthermore, each of the Note Value characters in this story speaks using words that match their rhythm. What wonderful reinforcement.
Another cool learning point is that a Quarter Note, Quarter Note Rest, Pair of Eighths and a Group of Sixteenths all share the same value = 1 beat!
My colleague and dear friend Tess, loved this story so much with her students, she recorded her voice onto it (as she was regularly losing her voice in classes). She has a beautifully gentle Swedish accent and she structures her sentences differently to English, so I love how quaint it sounds when she reads, And they all lived, happily ever after. The video is included here in case you have a day when you need to save your voice!
Blitz Those Note Values For Kids – Lesson Pack:
- Gingerbread Story PDF
- Gingerbread Score and Lyrics for Song
- Gingerbread Play Along Video
- Gingerbread Backing Track
- The Note Who Felt Forgotten Whole Note Story PDF
- The Note Who Felt Forgotten Crotchet Story PDF
- The Note Who Felt Forgotten Read Aloud Video
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