Toys As Learning Tools 1: Pathwords
This puzzle game (made by ThinkFun) is designed as a set of wordsearch puzzles. To play, the player chooses a puzzle, looks for the listed words then covers each word with the corresponding coloured shape. When all the words have been found and covered and none of the shapes are sticking out or overlapping, the player wins the game.
I’ve adapted this for music – instead of letters in the grid, I’ve made some puzzle sheets with music notes:
The aim of the game now is to correctly read the letter names of the notes in order to spell the words, so it’s still a wordsearch but with musical notes instead of letters. The number of possible words (using letters A to G only) is, of course, limited but by using different clefs, the number of challenges is increased.
Pupils who have tried the game have happily practised their note-reading skills and enjoyed themselves at the same time.
(I am not being paid or given anything to write this; I bought my own and genuinely like it.)