Beginning Rhythms

I made a new summer worksheet to share with you!  It is free for a limited time. [Please note the free promotion has ended.] This is a rhythm worksheet for students who have already been introduced to beginning notes and how many beats they receive in 4|4 time. It makes a good review or a teaching page for beginners. I made it a little more fun by calling it a tournament between baseball and soccer and whichever sport gets the most points is the winner. I hope that students get everything right and it ends in a tie. Then you can hold up a rhythm pattern flash card for them to count correctly and break the tie. They get to pick which sport gets the extra point!

This sheet is also a fast way to discover just how much a transfer student knows. I once had a transfer student play one of his previous pieces for me. He was holding the whole note way too long so I asked him how many beats he should hold it. He said, “Oh, my other teacher told me I could just hold it as long as I felt like it!”

Now, it would be easy to blame the previous teacher for not teaching the student how to count. But I learned a long time ago when I taught classroom music that students frequently say either the first thing that comes to their mind, or what they think you want to hear, or some wild but imaginative twist to what another teacher or parent said! I learned to never blame a previous teacher for the failures of a transfer because I wasn’t there at the previous lessons and who knows what was said or how much the student has forgotten! Even so, it is helpful and no doubt important to discover just what our students remember from past lessons and to review as necessary.

For more summer-themed fun sheets, click here for the Summer Treats Fun Sheet Bundle where you get 3 bundles (24 pages) for the price of two that contain several levels and concepts all about fun, summertime treats

Click here to get this worksheet.