Valentine’s Day Write the Room: A Rhythm Treasure Hunt for the Elementary Music

Item description

Are you looking for a highly engaging and super fun activity that gets your students up and moving WHILE practicing rhythmic notation? If so, you’ve hit the jackpot with “Write the Room!” This version is decked out for Valentine’s Day and reinforces quarter and eighth notes and quarter rest.

Here’s how to play:

1. Place (or hide, depending on how challenging you want it to be) cards all over your classroom.
2. Give each student a “Write the Room” recording sheet.
3. Have students go on a treasure hunt around your room to find the cards.
4. When they find a card, they must match the number and symbol to the correct spot on their recording sheet and notate the rhythm.
5. Once they have found all ten rhythms, they are done and ready to have their work checked. (If you want to turn it into a game, you can have the first person to finish be “the winner”).

There is an answer key provided, making correction easy for you, but also makes this a great activity for a non-musical substitute teacher.

What’s included:

• 10 large rhythm cards (quarter notes/rest, eighth notes)
• 10 smaller rhythm cards (great for turning into flashcards or just using less paper)
• 2 pages of blank cards/recording sheets (these can be used as recording sheets for students who need more space to notate their rhythms)
• 1 page recording sheet
• 1 answer key
• 1 Valentine’s Day coloring page and 1 “I Can Spread Love” writing page (great for early finishers, quiet work, send home, sub tub, time fillers)

There are also tons of ways to extend this activity. Here are some suggestions included with your purchase:

• When students have completed their treasure hunt, have them practice their rhythms using body percussion, eventually working up to non-pitched percussion, and ultimately improvisation on an Orff instrument (set up in a pentatonic scale).
• Using the smaller set of cards, have students string together 2-3 cards to create a “B” section to an established Valentine’s Day/Love themed song (the patterns they create are also great ostinati to use as transitions to speak or use on body percussion when rotating to another instrument).
• Use cards as a station in centers: have students practice/perform rhythms on instruments.

Let’s be friends! Be sure to follow me here and check out all my posts on Instagram @joannateachesmusic!