Sarah Maier

Programming Activity Plan

 Activity Name: Note Recognition Game
 Learners: The intended learners are beginning piano students. Ages vary but are
generally from 5-10 years old.
 Overview:
o This game will help students practice identifying notes on the piano.
 Objective(s): After completing this activity successfully, students should be able
to connect the note names with the keys on the piano.
 Time duration: This activity should take between 5 and 15 minutes, depending on
how familiar students are with the names of the keys on the keyboard.
 Materials: Students only need a computer with internet access.
 Prerequisite skills/knowledge:
o Students have a copy of Piano, a Beginners Guide to reference and have
already studied it during lessons.
 This is the traditional method of finding C on the keyboard.
Students will look for patterns in the black keys to locate C. A chart
of the musical alphabet is also included to assist students in
recognizing all of the notes on the keyboard.
o A video on how to find middle C on the keyboard.
 This video will assist students who need to visualize it with teacher
assistance. The teacher shows what middle C looks like on the staff
as well.
o How to find C on the keyboard, a guide from WikiHow.
 This guide has a few different options in case students do not
understand traditional methods of pattern finding. Those students
can instead count each of the notes.
 Programming concepts:
o This program is one large sequence. I felt like this was the easiest way to
complete the task as students would have to complete it in one round.
Then, if they decided to complete it again it would be easily accessible. I
thought about making it more complicated and randomized but realized
that was unnecessary. I used conditional statements so that different
actions would be taken if students chose the correct answer versus if they
chose the incorrect answer. If students chose the correct answer they
were able to quickly move to the next question by switching to the next
keyboard. If students chose incorrectly they were given immediate
feedback by saying the correct answer after the space or an incorrect key
were pressed. I also used coordination and synchronization to ensure
that the timing was correct. I used the “wait” box to ensure that the timing
was correct in my program.
 Sample: Note Recognition Game
 o https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/207652145/#player
 Instructions:
o Press the space bar to begin the Note Recognition Game!
o Press the letter that corresponds with the highlighted key.
o If you don't know the note, press the space bar and the name will be
revealed.
 Tutorial:
o This tutorial can be found on my portfolio and my music studio website.
Here is a direct link to the tutorial as well.
 Alternative:
o One alternative project students could make would be naming the notes
on the staff. Students could both a treble clef and a bass clef or just use
one at a time. Students could then learn to recognize the notes on the
staff.
o Learners could also make a typing tutoring system using the same
programming concepts. Students would see the letter appear on the
screen and be encouraged to touch type the letter on the keyboard without
looking at the keyboard.
 Credit: I created this project on my own based off of a game I have played on
musictheory.net. I didn’t like the musical games I saw on scratch and decided to
program my own.
 Creator: Sarah Maier