Moana Shiny Rhythm Game

Kids just love this Moana Shiny rhythm game! It’s such a fun way to a combine a rhythm lesson with a favourite song that they’ll want to sing over and over!

To encourage kids to practice something, the trick is always to make it into a game. In this activity there’s the added attraction of a favourite Disney character to make it even more irresistable!

3 Free Printables

There are 3 printables included in this post: the simplified sheet music and lyrics to help learn the song, the rhythm cards for use in the rhythm game and a colouring sheet.

Print Sheet Music here: page 1 & page 2

In the rhythm game I’ve taken some of the very clever lyrics from the song and made up a listening and repetition game with a bit of role play, to get them practicing and echoing these catchy but quite challenging rhythms.

Print Rhythm Game here: page 1 & page 2

The printable colouring sheet included is just because Kids do love making a lovely shiny Tamotoa collage of there own to take home! There’s always so much fun to be had with glue and sequins and scrunched up silver paper!

Print Colouring Sheet

How To Play The Moana Shiny Rhythm Game

• First, listen to the song a couple of times on youtube. It’s very catchy, and before long you’ll all be singing along together.
• Now explore the rhythms on the cards. Read the phrases out loud and clap them together.
• To encourage the kids to really get familiar with it, you can take turns to pick a card and chant each rhythm over and over with everyone joining in.
• Now choose one child to be ‘Tamatoa’ the shiny crab. He turns his back to the rest of the group, at the other side of the room.
• The teacher stands at the opposite side of the room, holding the cards.
• One by one, each child comes to the teacher and the teacher secretly shows one of the cards and whispers and claps the rhythm to the child. They can huddle a bit while they practice – it’s all part of the fun to share in the conspiracy!
• The child, holding the chosen card, then creeps up behind ‘Tamatoa’ and whispers and claps the rhythm.
• Tamatoa then repeats the rhythm by echoing what he hears. It helps of course that they’ve already been practicing the lines of the song before and so will hopefully be helped by memory and the repetition.
• Younger children will just listen and parrot the words, but older children who can read will use the words on the cards as a prompt and learn to connect the words with the notes on the cards.