My Students’ Favorite Review Game in Music Class

Are you giving a test soon? Do you need to briefly check to see if students understand a concept you just taught? Do we just need a break from rehearsals? (I won’t tell anyone if you do). Then its a good time to play a review game and make learning fun again! I’m going to describe one of my students’ favorite review games.

What is Splat!?

Splat! is a racing review game that I’ve used with almost every type of content from rhythms to music history vocabulary and I’ve even used it with note names!

I like using the fly visual you see above because I think it’s just adorable and the kids think it’s silly to hit a fly, but you don’t have to use the fly flashcards; any flashcard you have can work.

How to play Splat!:

1. Break your students into two teams. Part of the fun of Splat! is the racing component.
2. Create two sets of flashcards to use with your students. I’ve always used two sets of the same flashcards to avoid “he blocked me from the card!” and to make sure the kids didn’t have their hands on each other. If you don’t have this problem, then one set of flashcards should be fine.
3. Adhere the flashcards to the wall. I make sure that all the flashcards are available all at the same time so that the kids have to race to find the correct flashcard first.
4. Clap the rhythm that you want students to find OR if using melody, sing the melody you want students to decode and find. Students now have to race each other to find the correct card. The first one to find it wins.
   • If you decide to use vocabulary in your game of Splat! then you can either say the definition of your vocabulary term and students have to find the term OR you can say the vocabulary term, and they have to find the definition.

My students have always loved Splat! and even my rowdy kids are into it because they get to briefly channel their energy in a productive manner. If you are interested in checking out the Splat! games I have created then you can look at the money saving bundle here! Every current and future Splat! game can be found using that link. But you don’t have to purchase the bundle to play the game. Any flashcard will work and I’ve also just written terms on my whiteboard with the dry erase marker.