Blog Posts

Music Room Rules, Name Games, and more!

Denise Gagne

Name Games

There are many great name games in Musicplay, and most are found early in the grade level, because the hardest thing the music teacher needs to do is to learn the names of all the kids they teach! I did pretty well learning names with up to 700 students/week, but often had twin trouble (Sherry and Shelley Fischer) and sometimes I'd mix up the Kirsten, Kristen, and 3 Jason's in a class would confuse me.
 
Name Games in MPO include - search these in the song search bar
Cookie Jar Chant - K
  • Hickety Tickety - K
  • Chickamy - K
  • Cuckoo - 1 (guessing game, also good for assessing pitch matching)
  • Number Concentration - 3
  • Jolly Jolly Rhythm - 4 (a teacher posted on FB that she'd changed to Let's Get the Be-eat, the jolly jolly beat.). Thought that was a great suggestion
  • Concentration - Gr. 5
 
We have a new simple Circle Game to learn names and a little about the students.  This is a great one to start with because of the focus on beat, and the students say their own names, so if they come to the music room without name tags, you get a quick review.
 
I love the Hello Beat Chant in the Back to School Unit - it becomes an on-going lesson on timbre as well as a way to practice names/concepts.
 
And there is a song to go with the storybook, All Are Welcome Here, that you can use to teach names.
 
Up the Ladder is a fun game - Dana Herro has made us a video and we'll post in the Back to School Unit,
 
And we have a simplified version of Jump In - Jump Out in the Back to School Unit in both English and French.
 
New Activity Coming Soon!   This or That!  An activity for you and your students to get to know each other.
 
 

Music Room Rules

 
Music room body percussion score
 
Are your rules similar to the ones above? (Poster is available in Back to School Unit on MusicplayOnline.com). This has been a great lesson for the first weeks of your school year!
 
Process:
  1. Have the students read the rhythms.
  2. Read the words in rhythm.  (Or teach by rote if students are not good readers) (body percussion is noted at the top of the system)
  3. Teach the students the suggested body percussion to go with measures one and two. When the students are confident with that, teach measures 3-4:
     

       Make   good  choi-ces .          Always be responsible
         stomp stomp stomp stomp .      pat-pat pat-pat pat-pat pat 
 
Use good manners be nice and be kind
     clap clap clap clap, snap snap, snap-snap snap .  
 

Music room body percussion score

 
                    Measures 5-6:  Speak when you're called on, always put your hand up.         
                                                stomp    pat-pat            pat    pat .clap-clap clap-clap clap snap
 
                                     Measures 7-8:  In the music room always try your best!
                                                              clap clap clap-clap clap . pat-pat pat-pat pat
 
Practice until the students have learned the entire chant, and are able to perform it without your assistance.


Care for the instruments and all of the equipment isn't in the chant.

  1. Have the students create body percussion for

                        Care for the instruments and all of the equipment.

    Chant the phrase 4 times, giving the students the opportunity to create body percussion with the phrase that will work.  Invite students to share their work, and have the whole class learn it.  This phrase can be either an introduction or an ostinato.  In performance, the words to the rules will be heard better if it's used as an introduction.

  2. Decide on a form for performance
    For example:
    - Say the introduction 2x
    - perform chant with words only
    - perform chant with body percussion only
    - perform chant with words and body percusion
     
     
    You could transfer body percussion to either non-pitched percussion or to bucket drums.  One of our Musicplay teachers, Richard Folts, created a melody and piano acc. for it and taught his students the song.
    Music room body percussion score
     
    Posters of Music Rules are available to download (or ship/print)
    https://store.musicplay.ca/collections/poster-packs/products/music-room-rules 

 

 

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