Every St Patrick’s Day, I play the Lucky Penny game with my students. This is not my original idea, and you can find the original brief instructions at Sing a New Song. It is a very simple game to review notes on the staff. I particularly like it because it isn’t just a drill of finding the note name. They also have to connect it through to the correct note on the piano. I always have some students who are great at naming the note, but still have no clue which octave they ought to be playing it in. This game helps.
What You Need:
- Flashcards with the notes you want to review
- As many pennies as you have flashcards. One (or more) should be marked on one side in some way as the lucky one.
- I use Euro pennies. My American students are always delighted by how small they are and the fact that they really are Irish pennies. Of course, if you don’t have a source for Euro pennies, any other small coin works just fine.
- My lucky penny has a sticker of a four leaf clover.
How to Play:
- Since I am not the originator of the game, I will just direct you to Sing a New Song to get the instructions on how to play.
- My modifications are as follows:
- I only have one lucky penny, not 2-5. If they have to go through two full octaves to find the penny, I don’t consider that a bad thing. It’s just more practice.
- I don’t give out candy, since I try to keep that at an absolute minimum. If they aren’t expecting candy, students are still interested in seeing how lucky they are (i.e., how quickly they find the lucky penny).
Variations:
- To make it easier or shorter, limit the number of notes you ask.
- To make it harder, don’t have them remove the penny on the note on the staff. Instead pick an interval and require them to remove the penny a third above or a fourth below the note on the staff. You can then ask them to name whether that interval is major, minor, diminished, etc.
Lori Davis Studio 