When do you teach your kinders how to read rhythm? I know that some teachers believe that our younger students should only experience music- we shouldn’t take the joy out by teaching them how to read. While that philosophy may work for some, I, personally, don’t subscribe to it.

I believe that if students are learning how to read in their general education classes, they should also learn how to read in music class. Now what I do agree with is that we should make music literacy fun for them! It shouldn’t be like our college sight-reading classes (remember those lol).

By the end of kindergarten, my scholars are able to read quarter notes, quarter rests, and even eighth note pairs! However, I start with teaching them about long and short sounds.

Like I said, it should be fun for them or that could have an adverse affect on their future music classes. (So, I totally get why many teachers opt out of teaching rhythm to their younger students!) But you don’t have to! Here are 5 resources that you can use in your classroom today to teach your scholars long and short sounds! I use these in my kindergarten classes but they would definitely work up until 2nd grade.

FLASHCARDS

This is the easiest way for me to teach my kinders how to read rhythms. I print these cards out and take a couple minutes at the end of class to have them echo the rhythms after me. Then, I have them recite the rhythms themselves. It’s a quick assessment but to see their eyes light up after they’ve successfully read a rhythm is amazing!! From here, they can easily transition into reading quarter notes and eighth note pairs.

BUSY BEE RHYTHMS

If you have the ability to incorporate centers into your music classroom this will be a great activity for your scholars. But don’t worry! This works for a full class as well–just project the slides on a screen and hand out the response sheets to the full class. Scholars will listen to a rhythm and fill out the missing part of the pattern on their response sheets.

LONG AND SHORT BINGO GAME

Who doesn’t love a game of bingo?! Play or sing various patterns for your scholars and play until someone gets three in a row! You will need a dabber or some math counters for this–you can buy it here or here but I always just borrowed from one of the general ed teachers.

I HAVE WHO HAS

This is a common game that I have turned into an activity to help scholars practice reading and performing long and short patterns.

Which Rhythm Do You Hear

This is another center that you can use as a full class activity. Scholars will listen to the rhythm and click the correct answer. Currently, I have created a level 1 center which has scholars choose between 2 possible answers. I plan on creating other levels where scholars will have more than 2 choices so stay tuned for that!

All of these products can be found on my TPT store. Happy Teaching!