Battleship game for String Orchestra

 

Are you looking for a super fun game you can play with your orchestra students that won't take much time to prepare?   Try BATTLESHIP!  This game works great to review any type of music students have been learning.  It's very simple to play and students love it!

Here's how to play...

1.  Choose your music.  I chose one of our concert pieces, but you can use exercises from method books or anything you like.

2.  Project your gameboard on screen.  I quickly made a gameboard using JAMBOARD.  You can use my game board.. you just have to click the 3 dots at the top of the screen...then click MAKE A COPY.  

MAKE YOUR COPY HERE

3.  Each section of the orchestra is a team.  Each team gets to fire a torpedo at any other section of the orchestra class by calling out one measure (you could do between 1-3 measures) from the music they have to play.  If the section plays the music in tune and in time with correct bowing, the torpedo is a MISS.  If the section does not play the measure correctly, it's a HIT and I move a little explosion icon on top of their ship on the gameboard.  Any team who gets 3 hits goes down in flames.

A FEW NOTES:

*When playing this in class, we rotated turns between sections:  bassess, cellos, violas, 2nds, then 1sts.  Game play continued in this way until the students sunk a few ships.  I allowed sunk teams to still fire torpedos at other sections so they could continue to participate.

*Before starting the game, I had my orchestra play the music we were using in the game so they could 'spy' on other sections to find measure where they could fire some torpedos.

My students are already asking to play this game again!  It was a great way for them to review tricky measures and find places that still need practice.