Cover the Key Game
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Every beginner’s first challenge is to learn the names of the keys on the piano. I think the fastest way to learn is to make a game of it, such as Cover the Keys.
To play this game, laminate the game boards and the cards. Print out one game board for each student.
In an individual lesson, I play along with the student. One of my students is just learning the name of keys, so I had to help her out. After playing the game a few time, I didn’t need to help her because she had learned all the keys. How’s that for quick learning? When you take turns drawing the cards there is an element of luck involved, and she was tickled to actually beat me!
If you play this game with a lot of students, be sure to print enough of the alphabet cards, especially if you use them as tokens.
If you notice, I have the keys grouped into two and three black key groupings. If they learn that the group of two starts with C and the group of 3 starts with F, it helps them learn the keys faster. You can go to the piano before or after you play the game and have the student play CDE and then FGAB all the way up the piano. Little children, especially, need to relate the game board to an actual piano!
Susan, your work is wonderful! I love the creative approach to teaching children, and I’ve been looking for good, free material for a while. Thank you for sharing your useful teaching materials with us!!
-Katelyn
Thanks so much for this game board. My beginners had fun playing it and I found out how well they did or did not know their keys. I used my magnet circle chips to cover the keys and then I have a magic magnetic wand to lift them all at once. They were maybe as excited about this as anything.
Thanks, Joanne. I like it because it is easy to do in a private lessons and really teaches the names of the notes quickly.
Susan,
We played ‘cover the keys’ today and one of the boys said, “This is cool”. We look forward to using your games every week. Thank you so much for your work and for sharing it with us.