Here are some of my favorite music activities to use with my piano students during the month of March. Brighten up the first month of spring with a little luck o’ the Irish with these Saint Patrick’s Day themed music games, activities, and worksheets!
Be sure to scroll to the end where I’ll share a cute little freebie to keep your students practicing over Spring Break.
And if you’re thinking, just show me where to get all the cute St. Patrick’s Day Music Activities already! Here you go…
Jump right over to ALL ST. PATRICK’S DAY MUSIC ACTIVITIES in my TPT Store!
Or to read a little more about each activity or just get some ideas, read on, my Teacher Friend!
St. Patrick’s Day Key Signatures Puzzles
I can be tricky finding fun ways to review and learn the key signatures. I created these puzzles because…big kids like games, too!
These are printable four-piece puzzles allowing students to match:
- Tonic (Key Name, Ex: “C”)
- Key Quality (Ex: “major”)
- Key Signature (Ex: “no sharps or flats”)
- Tonic Triad (Ex: C major triad in root position)
The great thing about these puzzles (besides being adorable, seasonal, and fun) is that you can print only the keys you want to review.
Major key signatures and minor signatures are included. And all keys have a treble clef puzzle and a bass clef puzzle.
Introduce a little competition by timing a student or pairing them with a peer to see who can correctly match all puzzles pieces first.
Grab these Key Signature Puzzles for a few bucks in my TPT store.
St. Patrick’s Day Chord Inversions Puzzles
These Chord Inversion Shamrock Puzzles work exactly the same way as the Key Signature Shamrock Puzzles.
Except now students are matching:
- Triad Name (Ex: “C major”)
- Root Position Triad (Ex: C-E-G on the staff)
- 1st Inversion Triad (Ex: E-G-C on the staff)
- 2nd Inversion Triad (Ex: G-C-E on the staff)
I find that most piano method books just don’t spend enough theory time on the concept of recognizing chord inversions! Most students are content to figure out each chord note-by-note at a snail’s pace rather than taking the time to learn how to quickly identify any inversion.
If you are able to immediately recognize E-G-C or G-C-E as “C Major” as your reading a new piece, think how much better of a sight reader you become!
Print the most basic chords first for your “chord rookies” and add on as they expand their chord vocabulary.
Grab these Chord Inversions Shamrock Puzzles for a few dollars in my TPT store.
St. Patrick’s Day Rhythm Bingo
This is my bestselling music resource so, of course, I had to make a St. Patrick’s Day version of it for March–my Rhythm Bingo!
The game works just like traditional bingo, but the teacher will call out rhythms. Students will then need to match the rhythm they heard to the corresponding rhythm on the board.
I love this game because it helps link the note and rest values students see in their method books with the musical rhythms they hear every day. After all, what good is music theory if you can’t apply it to what you’re playing?
The game includes three levels, each progressively harder:
- Level 1 shows the rhythm + picture + words
- Level 2 shows the rhythm + picture
- Level 3 shows the rhythm only
This helps teachers to work with groups of various ages, even combined age groups.
Check out St. Patrick’s Day Rhythm Bingo and other bingo variations in my TPT store.
St. Patrick’s Day Music Composition Activity
I came up with the Compose With Dice activity as I was brainstorming ways to make music composition more fun and approachable for beginning piano students.
My students love to do anything with dice. How do those magic little $0.60 cubes make everything more fun?!
I have a whole blog post dedicated to how to use Compose With Dice if you’d like to really dive in. But in summary, students are given a shell of a song (lyrics, left hand, and rhythm done for them), and they roll the dice to determine what each right hand melody note will be.
The benefits of this activity are endless! Students are reviewing so much more than just composing. Here are just some of the music theory concepts involved in Compose With Dice:
- 5-finger major scales
- Identifying notes on the treble clef
- Drawing notes on the staff
- Stem direction
- Note and rest values in 3/4 and 4/4 time
- Ear training
- and so much more
Choose from these pentascales (5-finger hand positions): C, G, D, A, and F Major
And each song has a cute picture and engaging lyrics related to St. Patrick’s Day.
Also included: a “cheat sheet” showing all of the scales and extra worksheets for practice drawing notes on the staff.
Grab this Fun Music Composition Activity for a few bucks in my TPT store.
St. Patrick’s Day Flashcard Puzzles
The next of our St. Patrick’s Day music activities is so versatile and easy to use. I call these “flashcard puzzles” because they take the place of flashcards for a quick and easy review, but the cute pictures and the fact that they are puzzles magically make them way more fun than flashcards.
Sometimes you need an independent activity for a student to work on without your assistance. These puzzles are perfect for a student who needs to work independently!
This puzzle set comes with 90 puzzles, so there’s something for every student (not just the basic notes)!
The puzzles feature adorable St. Patrick’s Day-themed clipart.
Included in the set:
- Piano key names
- Notes on the staff
- Ledger line notes on the staff
- Intervals on the staff (harmonic and melodic)
- Musical symbols
Print only the pages you want to work on. You can even have the student cut out their own puzzles if they need some additional review [or you need them to stay occupied a little longer].
Grab these fun little St. Patrick’s Day Flashcard Puzzles for a few dollars in my TPT store.
March A-Note-A-Day Mini Book
While this one isn’t technically a St. Patrick’s Day music activity, my March Note-a-day Mini Book celebrates all through the month with little St. Patrick’s-themed icons on every page.
Here’s how the mini book works:
- Choose the appropriate level for your student.
- Print and assemble the mini book.
- The student will name one note per day throughout the month of February.
- Students will also collect “clues” to a final St. Patrick’s Day music joke at the end of the book.
I have had such great success with these little magical book. Because here’s the thing, students can’t wait to pull out their “page of the day” and in doing so, they are accessing their piano books. And while they’re there…might as well practice, too!
For students that have a had a couple of I-didn’t-even-open-my-piano-books weeks in a row, I like to try something like this to motivate them (and frankly remind them that piano exists).
St. Patrick’s Day Music Worksheets
The final category of St. Patrick’s Day music activities is music theory worksheets. (Keep reading because the freebie is next up.)
There are five worksheet packs to choose from:
- Color By Note St. Patrick’s Day Music Worksheets
- Piano Keys St. Patrick’s Day Music Worksheets
- Musical Alphabet St. Patrick’s Day Music Worksheets
- Finger Numbers St. Patrick’s Day Music Worksheets
- Music Math (Note Values) St. Patrick’s Day Music Worksheets
- Note Naming St. Patrick’s Day Music Worksheets
Or you can save 25% by buying the St. Patrick’s Day Music Worksheets Bundle. And if you purchase the worksheet bundle, you’ll receive the Color-By-Note music coloring sheets for FREE in addition to the discount!
Spring Break Bingo [Free Printable]
And finally a freebie for March or April (whenever your students’ Spring Break falls)!
This is the last of my St. Patrick’s Day music activities and an easy way to keep kids practicing over a longer break from piano lessons.
I like to offer my students a candy incentive for each “Bingo” they get over spring break. Many of my students come back with all of their squares filled in!
And you can download this bingo board for free in my TeachersPayTeachers store!
Thank you for being a reader of my blog. I hope to create more freebies in the future.
Check out some of my current freebies on the Resources page.
And be sure to subscribe to my email list to get future freebies and resources delivered to your inbox.