Super Shopping Game!

My students LOVE playing this simple “Shopping” game.  A few teachers have asked me to expand on an earlier blog post and explain how I modify this game to make it work for a variety of ages.  This game takes about 3-5 minutes to play, I usually have students play it in the middle of the lesson, and it is so fun that they’ll be asking you to play it next week!  This is an “off the bench” or” away from the music stand” activity and is appropriate for ages 3- 8.

Materials you will need

-A handheld basket or shopping cart


– Flashcards that fit in your shopping cart. I have a large toy shopping cart that Alfred’s music for little mozarts flascards fit into and I use all of the different types of flashcards below.

-A “shopping List” or “Chopin List” and Pen and Paper.
Here are some really cute ones!


Before the lesson (while the student is washing their hands) I hide some  flashcards and then students get a shopping list from me during  their lesson and try to find the correct cards to put in their basket.

For example with a 3 year piano old student, they can find all the 2 black key flashcards in a set of piano cards and for a Violin Student who is younger I have them find all the open string “family” notes on the Violin.  For older kids, they like to use the tiny shopping carts and I give them a list of cards to find at their level.  With advanced students you can have them go shopping for certain Key signatures or harder chords.

You can really tailor this game to work with each student.  For example I put “Find the note B” with Three Check Boxes after it for a little student who has been having trouble recognizing that note on the keyboard.  She was really excited to find the B’s and worked hard and finally made the connection after playing this game.  Here’s another fun modification for this game, you can sort all of the cards by category and put all of the “note naming” cards in one area and all of the Rhythm Cards in another, ect.  Then you can send the student to the “Rhythm Store” or “Letter Store” (or Harmonic vs. Melodic store, ect.) This will help a young or beginner student to not be overwhelmed by all of the choices!  

If you don’t have a shopping cart, any basket works, maybe even a shopping bag could do the trick as well but kids really love it when I incorporate TOYS! .  I always have a little reward and I give my students “change” of a few penny sized chocolate coins that I ALWAYS have on hand.

If you would like a copy of this month’s free .pdf printable which is a Level 1 shopping list and is pictured below, please enter your email in the annoying little popup box when you leave this page!

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