Engine Train game

I blogged a few days ago about "Engine Engine Number Nine."  Last year, I found this great resource for FREE on Teachers Pay Teachers:

Find it here:  Engine Engine Number Nine

Lindsay Jervis, a fellow Kodaly teacher here in Kansas (but 3 hours away in Wichita - I'm near Kansas City) has mapped this out perfectly for the Kodaly classroom.  Even if you're not Kodaly trained, you can totally benefit from this.  It has beat charts, iconic rhythmic notation, and is just very, very cute.

Anyway, I'm working with my 1st graders on ta and ti-ti, and getting them to clap them correctly.  So I decided to take a different direction with this.  I made 2 versions of this game - one to play with the whole group, and the other to play at centers or with smaller groups.

The large group game starts with this menu screen:

I've uploaded this to Teachers Pay Teachers as a PowerPoint, so you just click on one of the numbers, and it takes you to a rhythmic slide, like this one:

After they have tried, click on the train in the lower right-hand corner to bring you back to the menu screen.

Each slide is worth 1 or 2 points, so you just split the class in half, keep track of points, and the winner is the one with the most points at the end, or the first team to 10 points, depending on what you want.  I like to use this version first, before I split into smaller groups/centers, to give the kids a chance to learn how to play.

Now, for the small-group version, I actually made it a board game.  It's kind of on the same level as Candyland, so I practiced playing with my 4-year-old daughter.  Granted, she knew what ta and ti-ti were when she was 2, but still......

Here's the game board:

You can print out these differently-colored trains and laminate them to use as tokens:

Or, you can do what I did and use those cute little train whistles from Oriental Trading as game tokens:

 Choose a player to go first (I usually settle arguments with rock, paper, scissors), and they draw a card.  The cards have the same rhythms as the group game, but are smaller.  You can print this part out for the back if you'd like.  I actually just glued all the smaller cards on red construction paper, then laminated them:

And here's a view of the fronts:

The first player draws a card and claps it.  If they clap it correctly, they can move forward 1 space for 1 point, and 2 spaces for 2 points.  Here's a picture of my daughter clapping the rhythm:

And here she is moving her train:

Simple, but effective!  My favorite kinds of things!

You can get the whole train game here:  Engine Engine Number 9 Train Game.  It's not free, but hey, I'm trying to save up for adopting another child and adoption is expensive :)