Our librarian handed me the book A is for Alliguitar by Nancy Raines Day and I got really excited when I started flipping through its pages! It takes animals and combines them with various instruments for every letter of the alphabet such as an alliguitar (alligator and guitar, banjaguar (banjo and jaguar) etc.…. until zebrass (zebra and brass ~  Z is the only letter to use an instrument family instead of one instrument). The wonderful thing about this book is that it covers many different kinds of instruments from your basic flute and violin to the more exotic mandolin and castanets. It makes for a quick introduction in a fun way!

I am coming up on our spring concert, so I knew my time was limited! I decided to do a minilesson instead of a full blown game, although it can be turned into one easily!

MINILESSON:

I went over each of the 4 families and the instruments that make up each. I then simply called on random kids to answer the question “Is this instrument part of the orchestra and if so, what family does it belong to?”. If kids were correct they received a high five ~ nothing major, but it did the trick!

If I had more time ……

TRIVIA GAME:

Split class into 2 teams

Have each team choose a spokesperson (otherwise its mayhem!!)

The Task: answer the question as a group “Is this instrument part of the orchestra and if so, what family does it belong to?

How To Win: The team with the most correct answers wins

If you really want to be tricky, see if the kids can name the style of music for a particular non orchestral instrument….