Last week I played Connect 4 with my students. Here’s how the basic game works:
What you need:
- Music note flashcards
- Anything to use as markers (coins, pieces from other board games, erasers, etc.)
Setup:
- Lay out your note flashcards into at least four columns and four rows. More is better, at least for more advanced students.
- Divide the markers by color or shape between you and the student.
How to play:
- When it is your turn, place a marker on one of the flashcards and say the name of the note.
- The first person to get four in a row wins.
Variants:
- For pre-readers, use cards with only the letter. To place a marker on that square, they have to play that note on the keyboard.
- For readers who have only learned the C position notes, lay out all the flashcards. If they want to claim a space with a note they haven’t learned, they should say only whether it’s higher or lower than the notes they do know.
- For more advanced readers, use cards with ledger lines or intervals.
- For an extra twist, make it Gravity Connect Four, where all pieces automatically fall down to the lowest available flashcard in their column.
- For a bigger extra twist, make it Reversi, where if you flank an opponent’s pieces, they are replaced with your pieces. In this version, the goal is not to get four in a row, but to complete the grid and then count up who has claimed the most flashcards.
Lori Davis Studio 