Silly Putty rhythms are one of the all-time student favorite activties in my studio. After all, who doesn’t love Silly Putty??? To teach beginning note durations, I have several “Beat Boards” – boards with several hearts painted, each representing one beat (or “musical heartbeat”). We stick blobs of Silly Putty to the boards to represent notes:
Students learn that one “note” to each heartbeat is a quarter note. Notes that s-t-r-e-t-c-h out for two are half notes, and so on. Often, before I even introduce note values, I’ll put on recorded music and have students simply tap across the hearts from left to right to feel a steady beat. Once they can do that, we diagram a rhythm, then they tap or slide their fingers on top of the silly putty as we count through the pattern. When they slide their finger down the length of a silly putty half note, they really FEEL how the note has a longer duration.
I also use the beat boards when I introduce or practice counting by measures. I write the numbers 1-4 (for 4/4 time) on garage sale sticker dots and stick them to each heart:
It’s a great tool to help students understand and visualize the place of each note in a measure, and transition from counting by duration to counting by measures.
Helpful hint: I do find that some of my students become fascinated with stretchng and stringing out the silly putty and wander a little off-task when we do this activity (it can take FOREVER to diagram a rhythm if the kids haven’t figured out the trick to pulling silly putty apart). If I plan to use this in a lesson, I’ll often have it pre-prepped, with the silly putty already divided into small balls before the student arrives.
I used some scrap craft wood and a heart stencil to create the beat boards above, but there’s a paper version available for download on my website:
If you print it on cardstock or heavy-weight paper, then laminate it, the cards will be sturdy enough to withstand the silly putty. The printed cards can be taped together (on the back side) to create a “board” 12 or 16 heartbeats long.
I have absolutly loved your website I just can’t get enough!! I do find it hard to do the games in only 5 min. though. I guess I need to work on more of a system. I would really like to know how you teach dotted quarter notes. I am finding it really hard to come up with a creative fun way for my students to remember and how to count dotted quarters and eighths. Any suggestions? I would love to use the beat boards, not quite sure how to apply it.
Hi Jessica,
Glad you’ve found some things you can use! I do use the beatboards when I teach dotted quarter notes (along with some rhythms on a whiteboard). I’ve got a couple of students working on that at the moment. Let me snap some pictures in lessons, and I’ll put up a post about how I use them (I think it might be much easier to just show the setup rather than describe it).
Jen
I can’t wait! Thanks!