My son was recently in a Spelling Bee competition at his school and did really well (was in the final top 10 – so proud of him!). I previously had my piano students play a game with cards involving words you could spell with the letters ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, ‘F’ and ‘G’. The thought occurred to me that I could combine the two.
How to play:
- Student uses the two sets of music alphabet letters (if they choose) to make up a word at the bottom of the game board.
- Use the bees on the second page under the letters to spell out the word on the violin fingerboard.
If students need to put a bee on an open string, I have my students put the bees right at the top of the string, where the very first line joins up just under the words “Spelling Bee”.
To print out a copy of the game board, alphabet and bees, click here: Spelling Bee Game for violin
Alternative ways to play:-
- Purchase little 3D bees from craft stores instead. Easier for little hands to manoeuvre.
- See how many words your student can put together in 1 minute using the music alphabet.
- Take turns spelling words until you run out of words.
- Student can play the word they have spelled out on their own violin.
For a list of musical alphabet words, click here: Musical Alphabet words from dstring.com
Edited to add that I have found out there are a couple of piano sites that have Spelling Bee games on them too. Natalie Wickham has posted a Spelling Game of hers up on the Music Matters Blog site: Natalie’s Spelling Bee version. Anne Crosby (of Piano Discoveries) has made up her own Spelling Bee game involving a treble clef and bass clef stave as well, which you can find here: Anne Crosby’s spelling bee game.
