The Gamified Music Classroom

The Gamified Classroom sounds like a potential landmine of non-educational time-wasters for sub days and those pesky days (or weeks) between the final concert and the end of the school year. However, using educational games throughout the school year can be anything but time consuming. Bring back students' favorite games on sub days for review, rather than "filler".

For your convenience, I have sorted some of my favorite games (both store-bought and teacher-made) into categories based upon curricular objectives.

MS= Recommended for middle school, EL= recommended for elementary general music, HS= recommended for high school, PL= recommended for private lessons, C= recommended for choirs (including community and church groups)

Game Genres:

• Music Reading

  • Name That Tune: a Solfege Review HS, MS

  • Rhythm Kaboom EL, PL

  • Rock Paper Scissors, SING! C, EL, MS

  • Scale Builders Relay Race MS, HS

  • Paper Airplane Tic-Tac-Toe MS, C

  • Rubix Cube: sides are divided into major/minor solfege, rhythmic values, and notation. Can be made by purchasing a solid rubix cube and adding your own symbols with a Sharpie.

  • Music Alphabet (vocabulary game) HS, C, PL

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• Ear Training

  • Boom Cards from Band Directors Talk Shop MS, EL

  • Boom Cards from Melody Payne HS, MS

  • Persuasion EL, C

  • Poison Pattern MS, HS

  • Virtual Escape Room: Intervals HS, C

  • Music Interval Bingo

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• Group-Building

  • Choir-O-Meter (also a cumulative skills-based assessment) HS, MS, C

  • Choirs Are Horrible (from the makers of Cards Against Humanity) HS, C

  • Party Encore HS, MS, C

  • Sing or Dare EL, C, MS

  • The Attitude Game HS, C

  • Scavenger Hunt C

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• Memory/Knowledge

  • Timeline: Music and Cinema PL

  • Name That Tune (multiple varieties, such as this one, on Youtube!)

  • Music Bingo

    • Music Performers- Black History Month

    • Symbols

    • Note Names- Treble & Bass Clef

  • Trivia Games

    • Music IQ

    • Sing It Charades HS, MS

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• Composition & Improvisation

  • Rhyme Antics HS, MS, C

  • Pass the Beat Around the Room MS, EL

  • Poetry for Neanderthals

  • Chrome Music Lab Bingo MS, EL, PL

  • Measure Up! EL, MS

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Long-Term Games (play at your own pace, grow year after year)

• Solfege Wars HS, MS

• Virtual Escape Rooms C