Over the Edge from Pianimation.com

I've had lots of fun researching different musically educational theory games over the summer, and beginning to implement some of them in my studio. This evening, I introduced Over The Edge during a couple lessons...

Tonight, one of my students was having some trouble remembering the names of different notes (quarter notes, half notes, whole notes) and rests (quarter rests, half rests, and whole rests), so we pulled out Over The Edge, a game designed by Jennifer Fink and posted on her wonderful blog: www.pianimation.com!

Over The Edge uses the image of a river filled with rocks to introduce and reinforce common notes and rests - quarter notes/rests, half notes/rests, dotted half notes, and whole notes/rests. You draw a card, and get a gem for each count. I always ask my students for the name of each type of note/rest and how many counts it gets.

Tonight's student quickly began to be able to identify notes and rests by their full name rather than just, "that gets one count...", "that gets two counts...", etc. Plus, she had lots of fun filling her board before I filled mine - and she won the game!  :)

I've also had success using this game at the first piano lesson that we discuss quarter notes and half notes. Typically, quarter notes, half notes, and whole notes are introduced within a week or two of each other, so this is the perfect review game (just use the notes that your student already knows). At the end of the game, my students and I use the Over The Edge cards to create some extra rhythms or perform some quick ear training exercises.

---