I went out and bought a Valentine's Day container made of tin. You could purchase one made of cardboard but I specifically chose tin so that it would last. I've had my container for 6 years now. I gave the contents of it (sour candy) to my son who LOVES anything tart. If it were filled with chocolate then I'd be all over that! I also purchased small candy wrappers from the supermarket and 1"x1" plain wooden blocks from a hobby store which I colored brown with a brown magic marker to make into "chocolates". I had blank white address labels lying around which I used to draw staff notes on and blue label dots which I wrote letters on. (Can't remember why I chose blue dots instead of red. I must of run out of my red dots. I'm all about using what I already have!)
The object of the game is to match the "chocolates" to their appropriate wrappers. I usually time them. The rule of thumb when timing your students is to give them three times longer than what it takes you to complete the game. So if it took me 30 seconds then I'd give my students 90 seconds to complete the game. Once they match everything up, they close the container with the lid and I check it.Obviously, you can change what you write on the little labels that go in the candy wrappers and "chocolates" depending on what you're wanting to test them on. You could write musical terms in the wrappers and draw small pictures of the terms on the "chocolates" and have them match those up or you could test them on interval ID by drawing melodic or harmonic intervals on the candy wrapper labels and 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, etc. on the "chocolates". Have fun with it! Your kids sure will. Until next time, piano blogger signing off........
