Treble Clef Story Project

Ah, the treble clef. It is an absolutely essential skill to learn, but students tend to struggle with it simple because it takes so much repetition to learn. There’s only so many times you can run through flash cards before you start getting bored. (Let’s be clear here, I get bored faster than the kids do!) 

The good news is, there are lots of resources to make learning the treble clef fun. I used this project to wrap up a treble clef unit for 3^rd grade, though you could easily use it for another grade as well.

To learn the treble clef, we used a lot of technology. Staff Wars is a staple in my classroom when learning notes, and the students love it. Star Wars + blowing stuff up = great opportunity for learning! No, really. The kids love it! We also created our own silly mnemonic device sentences to help remember the notes. My favorite example this year from that activity was, “Evil Goblins Buy Dirty Food”.

Once individual note identification became comfortable, students had daily puzzle challenges using Treble Clef Words at classics for kids and eventually the more advanced Word Warrior games. These games had students spell out a word using notes on the treble clef staff. Word Warrior also lets you blow stuff up, which is a proven recipe for success.

For the project, students created a short story (5-10 sentences) that contained at least 5 treble clef words. For the final product, students wrote the words on the treble clef within their story. Students brainstormed a list of several words that only use the musical alphabet, A-G. We then organized them into small, medium, and long words. Students could self-differentiate based on how comfortable they were. 

We started with a frame of what the story would be, using the frame: (Character) is (Doing Something) (Somewhere). I gave them a starter list with super-heroes making breakfast or fighting evil in an airport or a farm, but students were free to use anything that was school appropriate.

Here is an example of a rough draft. The story frame is at the top.

Next, students looked at the musical alphabet words and chose 5 that would be easy to fit in their story. For instance, if your story frame was “Spongebob making breakfast under the sea,” it would make sense to use the word “egg.” Students wrote those words out on the treble clef staff, with each word getting its own staff. I had them write out quarter notes, but you could also use whole notes so you don’t have to worry about stems going up or down.

Treble clef word rough-draft

Students created a rough draft using plain words with normal letters. They put a box around each treble clef word, so they would know to write them out on the treble clef when they did the final copy.

Final draft for the same student

Students then created their final copy, and decorated it if they had time. (One thing I would do differently next time: only provide light colors. Some of my kids colored with dark colors and then got sad when their story was hard to read.) We then projected them on the board and solved several of the treble clef stories. Students had a blast solving the stories of other students!

Here are a few of my favorites:

 

Check out that spider-man!

This story cracked me up!

"The reason he eats cabbage is to be green."

My kids really loved this project. I would like to do something similar with an older grade next year, but have them  perform their stories and play the notes on tone bars. It's a great project though, and I hope you find it useful for your students!