Submitted by Breana, Jacksonville, Florida
Idea posted January 18, 2010
This past week, I had some success with a game I made up when I had a little extra time in some of my classes.
One of my usual warm-ups is singing the word, "watermelon" (it's a fun word and makes them work their mouths) on do-re-mi-fa-so and back down. Well, this week I drew five little watermelon slices on the board in an upwards slant. I pointed to the correct watermelon as I sang different melodic lines (usually four or fewer watermelons, sometimes only using do and re), then had them copy me.
What made the kids really get into it, was turning it into a competitive game, with half of the class echoing me. If they didn't do a good job, the other team had an opportunity to "steal" the point before getting their own melodic line to sing. I was amazed at how some of the bad attitudes suddenly disappeared when they had the opportunity to compete against the other half of the class!