I love cross-skilled activities. My kids love to play matching games and we have a variety of themed matching games (seriously, Avengers, Moana, Sesame Street…). It was time to mix it up and make up a music matching game.
Except, we did not have any, so, it was also time to get crafty for some music matching!
Making the Game
I printed out two worksheets that had a grid of musical instruments like these and gave one to each kid to cut. I had found some 3”x5” notecards and cut them in half so that we had appropriate-sized cards to use. They pasted the images to the cards while I queued up some example videos and we were good to go. Fine motor skill portion of the activity — check!
Playing the Game
We reviewed each instrument on the card, said its name and identified its instrument family. Next, we watched a quick clip on YouTube of each instrument (because I didn’t have all of them on hand). YouTube has plenty of instructional videos, but I loved these by the Philharmonia Orchestra UK . I usually found a good 15-30 second clip per instrument and capped it there.
After we heard and discussed each instrument, it was time to play. We played a traditional match game, but you couldn’t “win” your match until you were able to identify what instrument pair you matched. Memory and recall portion of the activity – check!
This was a fun one. The kids had a sense of pride in knowing they physically made the game and they were very excited to talk about the instruments they remembered. I saved the cards for another day. Maybe even for another activity!
