Ideas for teaching notes on the treble clef staff

Hello everyone! We are so excited to write the first blog post of our collaborative blog, Sing. Teach. Love. The blog is meant to be a place to share music education ideas for your classroom, written from the perspective of several different teachers and methodologies! For information on all of the teachers collaborating on the blog, see the “about us” section near the top of the page.

For this first blog post, we thought we’d share specific ideas for teaching notes on the treble clef staff! Today, we're writing with five ideas from five bloggers.

From Aileen: I absolutely love the app Staff Wars, which can also be downloaded as a computer program. Whether you have several ipads, one ipad, or one computer, this game is such a fun, interactive way to practice identifying notes on the treble clef staff! The best part of the app is that you can choose only lines, only spaces, only notes on the staff, and extended staff...as well as bass clef and alto clef! I've seen big improvements with the speed with which my students identify notes on the treble clef staff because of this app!

From Tracy: When it comes to teaching the treble clef pitches I am always looking for activities that get kids out of their chairs. One of my favorite activities is a matching game made from dollar store finds. In the teacher section of the dollar store I look for the matching sets of notecards in clever shapes like ketchup and mustard bottles, fish and fishbowls, peanut butter bread/jelly bread and many more.

Take one of the cards in the set and draw a treble staff with notes that spell out a simple word using letters of the musical alphabet. On a coordinating piece, write the word that matches the other piece. After creating a set, mix them up and have students match them up. For this activity, I recommend using a tablecloth, rug or shower curtain on the floor. This defines the space that students work in and keeps the pieces from spreading out across the room.

From Cori: I try to take any opportunity to get kids up and moving, so having a large floor staff is a must. I use painter’s tape directly on the floor, but you could also tape a staff to a shower curtain or an old sheet for easy clean up. (Or maybe you hit the music teacher jackpot with a staff rug!) There are lots of ways to use your staff, but my favorite is an easy bean bag toss. Students work in pairs or in a large group, tossing a bean bag onto the staff and naming the note where it lands.

From Amy: When teaching the treble clef I love to use lots of manipulatives that are quick and easy to check for student understanding. One of my favorites includes using Animal Foam beads from Oriental Trading. We first use these when we’re learning about staff direction, in other words the numbering of the lines and spaces. Students get an assortment of beads and a mini staff on which the beads fit. Then they follow directions such as “place the lion on the first line” or “place the elephant on the fourth space.” When we transfer it to the treble clef I am then specific in giving them placements for the animal heads: “place the monkey on G” or “place the monkey on the G-line.” The really fun thing about this is it’s quick and easy as a formative assessment; using different animals on the different places on the staff is fast to see and note who is “getting it” and who needs more help.

From Jena: One of my favorite ways to teach and review the notes of the treble clef is playing a scavenger hunt. I hide cards all around the room. Each card features a note or multiple notes on the treble clef. Each student receives a paper to write down their answers and a pencil. The students walk around the room trying to find each treble clef card. When they find the card, they write down the name of the note that is displayed on the treble clef. To make it more challenging, I feature multiple notes on the treble clef card that spell words. When there are multiple notes on the card, it forces kids to practice reading the notes left to right, instead of top to bottom or bottom to top. I also hide the cards in pretty tricky spots to make it more fun for my students to find them. This activity is always a hit as the students are up, moving, and searching for the hidden cards!

We hope this has been helpful! Check out this post for more ideas for the treble clef staff. Make sure to follow us on Bloglovin’ to read our upcoming blog posts.

What are your favorite ways to practice identifying notes on the treble clef staff? Feel free to comment below. Enjoy singing and teaching!