Piano Valentine’s Day Cards and Games

Whether you love or hate Valentine’s Day, I think we can all agree that celebrating love and showing appreciation for each other is always a good thing! Every Valentine’s Day I like to encourage my students with a little piano-themed Valentine and some games to let them know how much I care about them, their music journey, and helping them grow their love for making music.

Here I’m sharing some of the Valentine’s Day cards I’ve given my students as well as games that I pull out every year to play with my students! I hope you find something that inspires you this Valentine’s Day. Check out the

Here I’m sharing some of the Valentine’s Day cards I’ve given my students as well as games that I pull out every year to play with my students! I hope you find something that inspires you this Valentine’s Day. Check out the Toucan Piano Store for more piano teaching resources and music theory games.

Valentine’s Day Cards

I love coming up with Valentine’s day cards for my students! The first one I ever made was my “You Hold the Keys to My Heart” Valentine (I love a good music pun!). I handed them out with a small piece of candy during Valentine’s Day week. You can download this free printable here.

A pink Valentine's Day Card sits on top of the keys of a piano. They card reads "You hold the keys to my heart".
Piano-themed Valentine's day cards sit inside a heart-shaped bowl.

This year I wanted to make a new Valentine that I could attach a heart-shaped chocolate to. The result was my “You Make my Heart Happy with Every Note you Play!” Valentine. I attached a Hershey’s Strawberry Cream Heart to the center of the heart-shaped note with double sided tape. They have been a hit so far! You can download this free printable here.

Music themed Valentines with heart shaped chocolates sitting on a wooden table.

Valentine’s Day Rhythm Games

The Path to Your Heart: A Would-You-Rather Rhythm Game

This one is a favorite with my students and I pull it out every year! The Path to Your Heart combines both the fun of “would you rather” questions with rhythm exercises. It is a great game for in-person lessons, online lessons, group lessons, and even classrooms! Check out the blogpost for more information.

A would you rather question printed on a sheet of paper is laying on a wooden table. The sheet has two possible answers accompanied by rhythm notes. A drumstick held by a piano teacher points to a rhythm on the sheet.

Sky-High Love

I love fun and easy games that use things I already have around my studio! For this Valentine’s Day game, I used my rhythm popsicle sticks and mini heart-shaped erasers. It’s so simple and the kids absolutely love it! The record so far for the most eraser stacked at my studio is 31!! I’m excited to see if anyone will beat the record this year. For more information on how to play check out the video below or the blogpost.

Valentine’s Day Note Reading Games

Sweet Words

Everyone loves hearing sweet words! But these sweet words are missing letters… Who will be able to find their missing letters and complete their word first? Students will have fun reading the notes on the staff (or naming the white keys on the piano) to try to fill in the missing letters of their sweet word(s) first. Check out the blogpost for Sweet Words here.

The word "Friend" is spelled out using keyboard cards and letters.

I Can Heart-ly Wait for the Punchline

What is better than a joke?! Well, a music-themed joke, of course! I love introducing my students to music theory jokes, especially when I can mix in some music theory. I love this game in particular because not only do students have to think about keyboard geography, they have to be able to associate the notes with their exact location on the piano. Check out the full blogpost for more information.

Piano student plays a note-reading game based on music theory jokes.

Musical M.A.S.H.

Did you play MASH (Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House) when you were a kid? All it required was a piece of paper and a pencil! My friends and I would spend countless recesses trying to find out if we would marry our crushes, have 20 kids while living in a mansion (we all wanted the mansion, of course) and driving a Ferrari! This Valentine’s Day my students and I are playing the musical version of M.A.S.H. (maestro, accompanist, soloist, hobbyist) that I created. We will be drilling our knowledge of the spaces on the grand staff while figuring out our musical futures!

Musical M.A.S.H. is available as a free download in the Toucan Piano Shop. You can read more about it here.

Other Valentine’s Day Resources

Rainbow Manuscript Paper

We are in the season of hearts and rainbows – Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day – and what better way to show your love for someone than with an original piece of music! The rainbow manuscript paper is available in the Toucan Piano shop as a free printable! Print as many as you like for your students. You can read more about how I use the rainbow manuscript paper with my students here.

Piano student composes an original song on a piece of rainbow manuscript paper.

The Die of Destiny

Sometimes, when the weather is miserable or after a tiring day at school, a student will walk into my studio without their usual bounce in their step. I’ve found that a little silliness and a dash of chance gets them in the mood to pull out their piano books and play music. This quick lesson starter only takes a minute and gets students in the mood to play! Check out the blogpost here.

Explore more creative teaching ideas
  • Chord Snowblast
    Cast away the winter blues and have fun reviewing chords with Chord Snowblast! Build chords and collect points while trying to avoid the snow blast! Kids will test their knowledge of building chords AND they will actually be hoping to get all the chords with sharps and flats!!
  • Two Sides of the Same Coin
    This St. Patrick’s day see if your students have the luck of the Irish! Two Sides of the Same Coin is a game about enharmonics that can be played in several different ways! Students will try to collect the most enharmonic pairs and hope that their coins don’t get stolen by another player (or the Leprechaun!).
  • Pot of Gold Rhythm Game
    Students love this easy rhythm game for beginner/elementary level students. The value of each rhythm note or rest will determine how many coins go into the pot. Who can fill their pot the fastest?! This game can be adapted for any time of the year or use mini-cauldrons for a fun Halloween or St. Patrick’s Day game.

Let’s stay in touch, join the list!

As a “toucan” of our appreciation download a free set of note flashcards (link in our Welcome email)!

By joining the list, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive updates from Toucan Piano. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

toucanpiano2 Comments

Sky High Love: A Valentine’s Day Rhythm Game

I love fun and easy games that use things I already have around my studio! For this Valentine’s Day game, I used my rhythm popsicle sticks and mini heart-shaped erasers.

Place all the rhythm popsicle sticks in a container so that the student cannot see the rhythms that are written on the popsicle sticks. The mini heart-shaped erasers are placed in the center of the table.

The student pulls a popsicle stick out of the container and claps and counts the rhythm written on the stick. The student will then take the number of mini erasers from the pile that corresponds to the total number of beats that are on the stick. The student stacks the mini erasers to form a tower. For example, if the stick had a half note written on it, the student would take 2 mini erasers and stack them one on top of the other.

When a new popsicle stick is pulled from the container, the player must place the new rhythm stick next to his/her other sticks and clap and count them all as a sequence. Just as the tower of mini erasers will get taller with each round of play, the rhythm sequence each player must clap and count will also get longer.

Players take turns until one of the towers topples over.

The player whose tower is still standing at the end, wins! This is a great game to get the energy up at the beginning of a lesson! I’ve been playing this all week with my students. It has been so much fun to see how they each have a strategy for stacking their heart erasers. They really get into it!!

I always get excited about teaching aids that I can find multiple uses for… my rhythm popsicle sticks are one of them! Another game I love to play with my rhythm popsicle sticks is this Snowball Rhythm Game. It is a favorite every winter with my students.

Explore more creative teaching ideas
  • I Can Heart-ly Wait for the Punchline
    A heart themed laugh-out-loud note reading game.
    I love this game because not only do students have to think about keyboard geography, they also have to be able to associate the notes with their exact location on the piano. 
  • Sweet Words
    Students will have fun reading the notes on the staff (or naming the white keys on the piano) to try to fill in the missing letters of their sweet word(s) first. 
  • Musical M.A.S.H
    This free printable game tests your student’s knowledge of the spaces on the grand staff. It’s a fast, easy game to play, and will predict your student’s musical future with hilarious results!

Let’s stay in touch, join the list!

As a “toucan” of our appreciation download a free set of note flashcards (link in our Welcome email)!

By joining the list, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive updates from Toucan Piano. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

toucanpiano9 Comments