Reading notes on the musical staff is one of the most challenging, and most important, skills for a musician to learn. It takes time and practice, practice, practice! To make music reading practice easier and more fun, we’ve created this set of Note Finders activity pages. This activity will help you master the entire grand staff, from the most basic guide notes to the full staff and its ledger lines.
We recommend that you print these pages on cardstock and laminate them so you can use them again and again. Simply write the letter names of the notes in the open circles.
Ideas for using the Note Finders activity pages:
- Time yourself! Use a stopwatch and see how fast you can fill out a page. Keep track of your best times for each page and see if you can beat them.
- Have a race. Print out two copies of a page and challenge a parent, friend, sibling, or practice partner to see who can fill out the page the fastest.
- Take a “perfect score” challenge. Choose five small candies, snacks, or coins. Complete a page and check your answers. For every incorrect answer, lose one of your five “rewards.” You get to keep the rest.
- Try filling out the notes in different orders, from top to bottom or bottom to top, left to right or right to left, or in any combination.
- Choose a Note Finders page and get a partner to help you. Have your partner call out one of the letters of the musical alphabet. Find all the notes on the page with that letter name. Then have your partner choose another letter and fill that one out until all letters have been named.
- After filling out a Note Finders activity page, see if you can find all the notes on the page on the piano keyboard.
Ready to master the grand staff? Download and print your Note Finder activity pages and get started. Answer key included.