Benchmarks
During the beginning of the year, I tend to focus on the instrument families a lot, since our school gets to take a trip to the orchestra in the fall. Here is the breakdown of benchmarks in this are:
Third: Identify the instrument families.
Fourth: Classify instruments into families.
Fifth: Identify instruments aurally.
The Game
Here’s the premise. You are on a musical safari and you are looking for rare and exotic instruments to bring to your instrument petting zoo.
Sort the class into two teams. The person at the front of the line for each team gets a Safari hat and a butterfly net. The teacher will announce what instrument family we are searching for that day. When the timer or music starts, the person in front must collects an instrument card off the floor. They then take the card to the correct bin (KEEP or RETURN). For example, if we were collecting Woodwinds, then the team would only want to KEEP woodwind cards and they would want to RETURN all other instrument cards to their jungle homes. Once they have placed their card in the bin, they pass the hat and net on to the next person in line, and go to the end. At the end, the teacher sort through the bins: Correctly sorted cards add a point. Incorrectly sorted cards take away points. It would be great to have some jungle themed music to play during the game, and when the song is done, the game is over.
For a more challenging round, have bins for ALL types of instruments (instead of KEEP and RETURN). Now students have to sort all instruments into their correct family.
And best of all, you can use this as an assessment tool at the same time! Observe what instrument the child picks up and where they sort it and you can quickly jot a Y/N for correct classification. Boom, done! I love quick assessment (especially when they are a game that my students love too!)
Supplies
You will need:
- at least two buckets (you may need up to 5 if you want to play the advanced version)
- 2 class sets of cards with instruments (each set should be a different color, for easy scoring afterward)
- safari hats (2) and butterfly nets (2)
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