The Blog
Engaging, practical ideas, helpful tools, and creative
strategies to help you lead and teach with confidence
Games and musical activities are a fun and engaging way to introduce and reinforce new musical concepts and develop musical skills like listening, singing, expression, coordination, and internalizing a sense of steady beat.
Today, I'm sharing a few of my favorite musical games and activities for elementary music classes, children's choirs, and elementary group classes.
In the book, How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and How It Happens, Benedict Carey stated, “Games are the best learning tool.”
It’s true, isn’t it? Games often have a way of teaching us something new without us realizing we are learning. We’re concentrating on the rules, listening, observing, interacting, and in the end, playing.
Learning is simply embedded in the process.
Do you remember those songs we used to sing as kids that went on and on and on? That had what felt like a hundred verses, each one longer and sillier than the one before it?
This is the joy of a cumulative song.
From music class to road trips, playgrounds to choir rehearsal, cumulative songs are fun to sing, engaging for children of all ages, and an effective teaching tool.
For those of you who may not know what I’m talking about, a cumulative song is a song that adds a new phrase of text with each repetition.
Usually, the lyrics are a list of some kind, getting progressively longer as the song goes on.
Call and response is a musical form based on dialogue - someone sings or plays a phrase of music and someone else (or a group of people) respond in the subsequent phrase. Call and response stems from a variety of musical traditions, including African, Cuban, folk, and even church music (think cantor and congregation). (source)
Call and response can be a useful teaching tool, as it gives young children an opportunity to listen, imitate, explore the voice, and gain confidence in their singing.
Use a short call and response song at the beginning of your rehearsal (a “hello” or other greeting song), in the middle as a change-of-pace activity or game (see singing game ideas below), or at the end of your rehearsal (a “goodbye” song).
If you’ve never taught a call and response song to children before, here are a few pointers:
If you go to the grocery store or the park or Target, you’re likely to hear it - the sound of a small child singing a song they know by heart (often looping through a favorite section over and over). “The impulse to move, speak, sing, and play rhythmically is a natural and vital part of being human” (source). But, if it’s not encouraged and nurtured from an early age, children can “forget how to sing.”
How do you help them rediscover their singing voices?
How do you develop it and teach them to sing in a choir?
Where do you start?
In today’s post, I’m walking you through the ins and outs of developing children’s singing voices in a choir setting - from vocal exploration to developing choral musicianship. Let’s get started!
This is a vital step in the process. Give children numerous opportunities in rehearsals to explore what their voices can do. This helps them build coordination and gain control of their voice, develop an understanding of the voice and what it means to sing, and build confidence.
I love this time of the year.
This week in between Christmas and New Year’s is always a time of rest and reflection for me - both personally and professionally. I look back on my goals for the year and evaluate what worked and what didn’t work. I also spend some time reviewing this year’s blog content and growth and learning more about what really resonated with you. Finally, I look forward to the New Year by setting new personal and business goals and thinking about new blog content ideas and outlining a preliminary editorial calendar.
It’s always fun for me to look back at the most popular posts of the year. Here are this year's top 10:
Singing games are a great way to teach musical concepts, incorporate movement, and give children an opportunity to sing alone and with others. They're perfect as gathering activities, ice-breakers, or a quick change-of-pace in the middle of rehearsal.
A few months ago, I shared seven fun musical games for children's choir. As a follow-up to that post, I'm rounding up fifteen singing games - some, more suitable for younger singers; others for older elementary; and even a few that your youth choir would love. Most of these are sung in unison, without accompaniment. Also, since movement activities are difficult to describe in writing, I've included video demonstrations for most of these.
Enjoy!
It's a rainy evening and the 1st graders in your children's choir are extra wiggly. You need a quick change-of-pace to keep their attention and get through rehearsal.
Been there? I think we all have.
There are lots of games you could play, but I like choosing games and activities that keep the focus on music (and maybe get the children up and moving for a few minutes). Today, I'm sharing a few of my favorite (musical) games and activities for children's choir.
Enjoy!
