Music Owlympics 2021 | 12 Music Games (each a different sport and different musical element)

Add some friendly competition to your studio with
Music Owlympics 2021! 

12 individual games, each a different sport with a different musical element:

• 400m Freestyle (Music Maths)
• 800m Race (Identifying Musical Symbols)
• Archery (Piano Geography) 
• Baseball (Bass Clef Note Recognition) 
• Cycling (Drawing Musical Symbols)
• Football (Sight Reading)
• Gymnastics (Improvisation)
• Hurdles (Note Reading Words)
• Show Jumping (Treble Clef Note Recognition)
• Speed Climbing (Rhythms) 
• Table Tennis (Rhythms and Coordination) 

Also included:

• Certificates for 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place 
• Printable trophy shelves so you can display the winners' names 
• Printable playing pieces (of adorable sporty owls)

Ways To Use

There are several ways to use Music Owlympics (I'm sure you can come up with more than these), so here are a few of my suggestions: 

• A studio wide competition. Every individual student competes in every sport
   (Print the board off multiple times if you need more spaces on the scoreboard) 
  
  
• A studio wide competition with students split into teams.
  These teams could be named after countries, composers, animals, musical terms - anything! Keep track of the individuals' scores for each sport and then average them out for an overall team score.
  
  This could work in a group situation where team members volunteer to represent their team in certain events.
  
  
• Triathlon. Each student competes in three events.
  These events can be chosen by the student, chosen by the teacher, or a random selection.
  
  
• Pentathlon. Each student competes in five events. 
  
  
• Heptathlon. Each student competes in seven events. 
  
  
• In a group lesson, with all individual students taking part in a selection of the sports.
   
• In a group situation where students are put into teams and work together, combining the board game with a physical element. 
  
  This suggestion would take some extra work on the teacher's behalf as they would need to construct courses outside for students to run round.
  
  For example, for the 800m Race a course could be marked on the ground with circles matching those on the game board. One team member is the answerer and another is the runner. Every time the answerer gets a question correct, the runner runs from one circle to the next. The answerer can then only answer the next question card when the runner is in the new position. This would be very much a team effort! 
  
  This idea would work for several of the games, but you would have to be creative with others! 

Types of Questions

On the whole, the questions aren't too tricky. There's a variety of symbols in several of the games, but you can take out cards if your students haven't covered the theory yet.

When students are timed or given a time-limit they feel pressured (but hopefully in a fun way in these games!) so to ease some of that pressure, and so a good score feels achievable, the questions aren't too demanding. 

I've completed these style of games with more advanced students who have just as much fun as the younger and less advanced students - you can always come up with your own rules to make things harder for certain students (I like to reduce the time or be really strict on things for these students!) 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to help!