Want a fun new way to teach your beginning students the concepts of time signatures, measures, AND counting by measures (all at once)? Check out this new printable card set!
When I teach time signatures to young students, we use the analogy of a house… a funny house with rooms that are ALL the same size. We lay out evenly-spaced popsicle sticks to represent the walls of the house, then choose a time signature that will tell us how many people (or beats) we can fit in each room. Then we experiment with rhythm cards, choosing different combinations of cards that add up to the number of beats in the time signature and arranging them in the rooms. After students have a good grasp of the basic concept, we learn the terms measure, time signature and barline.
As I was working through this activity with a beginning student this summer, it dawned on me… it would be more fun to carry the analogy a little farther and arrange furniture, instead of just basic rhythm cards. A few hours on the computer later that night, and these new measure cards were born!
This set is really basic. It includes quarter, half, dotted half and whole notes, and a set of time signature signs (2/4, 3/4 and 4/4).
What I love most about these cards is that they provide an easy visual/tactile way to introduce the concept of counting by measure, right from the start. Once the cards are arranged into measures, students can count the number of seats in each room (one cushion = one seat). A child’s natural inclination will be to count by measure (for example: 1, 2, 3, 4) and not by note (ex.: 1, 1, 1-2).
Here’s a quick video demonstration to show how easy it is to count by measure with the cards:
The measure cards are available for download on the Flash Cards page.
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Looking for a resource to teach more advanced rhythms or time signatures? Check out these free rhythm printables:
Clothesline Rhythm Cards
Build-A-Measure Rhythm Game
Oh wow. I love this set! Thanks for sharing:)
This is fabulous! I can hardly wait to use this set. Thank you so much!
Thanks, mummyshymz & Melody! Hope you enjoy!
Thank you very much for another great resource. I have previously compared bars/measures to car parks where some cars are bigger so take up more space and some are like a motor-bike where you can fit more into one car park but have never made any graphics to go with these, so I look forward to using your cards with my students.
Thanks, Ann! I like the car example, too… that could be fun for boys!
I LOVE this! I need to include eighth notes too. I was thinking the same chair for quarter notes, but in a different color for titi, and perhaps little kid chairs for eighth notes.
thank you, I AM A MUSIC TEACHER IN DOSQUEBRADAS COLOMBIA, I LOVE THESE GAME I JUST SAY THANK YOU FOR SHARIN. (excuse me for my poor english)
Thanks, Walter. Glad to hear that you’ve enjoyed the site!
It’s funny that I just started using the sofa idea a couple of months before I saw this set. I do it a bit differently, but it’s a good idea!
These measure cards are outstanding!!! I’m always trying to come up with better ways to work with people who are more visual learners and I think this idea is just great 🙂
This cards are great! I can wait to use it with kids. Best regards from Serbia:)
wow!! good idea~! from South-Korea!!