In many of my group lessons this week, students are working on aural interval identification. For a few lucky students, this skill comes naturally. For most, it takes a LOT of (sometimes frustrating) practice. Here’s one of the games we’re doing this month to make that practice a little less tedious:
Candy makes everything better, right?!? This is a “reverse” game of BINGO that uses colorful Skittles and M&Ms candies. As a group, we decide what interval each color of candy will represent and fill out the “code” cards shown on the right. (If you use both Skittles and M&Ms, there are 7 colors possible, just enough to cover 2nds – octaves). Then students choose 16 pieces and put one on each blank spot on their BINGO card. They may chose all of one candy or a combination – it doesn’t matter if they don’t have every color possible.
I play an interval on the piano. Students must correctly identify it, then may remove and eat one piece of the appropriate color of candy from their board:
The first student to remove 4 in a row wins BINGO. The first student to remove all of his or her candies wins blackout!
One of my favorite things about this game is that it can “grow” with my students and they don’t mind playing it over and over! When students first start this game, we only identify generic, ascending intervals. Over time, we add descending intervals and I ask them to identify qualities along with distance.
The gameboards and “code” cards are available as a single file on my studio website. The boards print on standard size paper, then trim down to an 8.5″ x 8.5″ square.
What fun ear-training Jen!
This is so cool! cannot wait to give it a try at my church children choir!
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This is adorable! We have a Candy Land theme in my studio right now so this game is perfect!
What a fun studio theme!! I hope your students have fun with BINGO!!