Floor staff games are amazing in so many ways. They get students inside the staff, help them see things in new ways – and they have a fun novelty factor to boot.
My preschool piano partners just love this simple game, and I know your young piano students will too.
Floor Staff Games for Preschoolers
Along with practicing lots of landmark notes before my young students are even reading on the staff, I also love to use my floor staff to get lots of stepping and skipping practice.
To play these floor staff games with your students:
- Start with stuffed toys (one for each player) at the bottom of the floor staff.
- Roll a step/skip die or use an app like DecideNow to move up the staff.
- The winner is the first to reach the top of the staff.
Another game I like is simply to ask my students place tokens relative to a landmark note. E.g. “A step up from bass C”. I find this simple activity really helps me to see if they understand or are just copycatting.
If you want more step and skip review, I bet you’d love the free Landmark Landmines game. You can grab that here.
Steps and Skips on the Staff Flipped Learning Video
In this video, I teach students about steps and skips and what they look like on the staff. Feel free to send these videos to parents for their kids to watch, use it in group lessons or as part of lab time.
These videos are designed to be clear and concise so that students can watch them – and then get on with some writing work for reinforcement. Saving you time to do fun activities during the lesson time.
These videos correlate directly to Thinking Theory Prep Book page 10. View the full Thinking Theory series here and see what makes these workbooks so special.
More Flipped Thinking Theory
If you liked this music theory video, you might also like these others:
- Flipped Basic Note Values
- Flipped Beginning Solfa
- Flip and Gameify Landmark Notes
- Flipped Time Signatures
- Flipped Note & Rest Values
- Flipped Dynamics
- Flipped Accidentals, Tones & Semitones
- Flipped Articulation Marks
- Flipped C and G Major Scales
- Flipped Tempo Marks
- Flipped Ledger Line Landmark Notes
- Flipped Intermediate Note Values
- Flipped Note Stem Rules
- Flipped Solfa Scale Singing
- Flipped D & F Major Scales
- Flipped Note Grouping/Beaming
- Flipped Expression Marks
Do you have favourite floor staff games?
Do you have other large scale staff activities? Or other staff games for young beginners? Give us your top ideas in the Vibrant Music Studio Teachers community on Facebook or in the comments below.
Jen Fink’s Pianimation website has a fun game, very similar to yours, Nicola, with cards that can be printed out: Step, Skip, Up, Down: “Floor Staff Races.” She used painter’s tape on the floor. http://www.pianimation.com/2010/06/14/floor-staff-races/ Oodles of other games and great ideas for teaching, too.
Here’s another step-skip game–use with a frog; other intervals included:
http://discoveriespianostudio.blogspot.com/2011/03/lily-pad-interval-game.html
Neither of the blogs is active, but Jen and Sarah have left them up so music teachers can continue to access their materials–so kind!
This is a fantastic game that I’ll add to my floor staff bag of tricks! Thanks for sharing! Floor staff twister to practice intervals is always a favorite with my students. I have 2 sets of floor staves: one that’s big enough for multiple students to stand on and several smaller floor staves that I drew on poster board. I cut out noteheads that fit the smaller floor staves. We’ll sing solfege patterns while stepping on lines & spaces on the big floor staff, then a few weeks later do melodic dictation on the little floor staff with the noteheads. It’s fun to teach folk songs that way: then kids can go to the piano and play what they’ve learned while singing solfege. Of course, you’ve got to remember to change which line or space “Do” starts on each week, otherwise students will mistakenly learn that Do goes with a specific line. I teach moveable Do solfege, where Do is always tonic, so I want them to understand that Do can be anywhere.
Yes, me too. I’m in the habit of cycling through g, c and f majors for solfa. Unless there’s no clef, then I just put do anywhere! 😀
Hi there! This is an awesome idea! Where do you get a floor staff?
I made mine Jen, but you can find them at a few stores I think too.