Submitted by Kristin Lukow, Nebraska

Idea posted August 26, 2003

This is the list of games that I keep on hand for those days when nothing else will do. I try to get to them at least once during the year! These are games I use for 3rd-6th.

Lines and Spaces Bingo
Musical Symbols Bingo
Rhythm Bingo
Instrument Bingo
"Pass This Shoe" (from Music K-8, Vol. 3, No. 3) - I love this!
Musical Pictionary/Musical Charades/Musical Picturades (A combination of the first two.) - I choose cards that I have made that pertain to whatever we have been studying.
The Cup Game - I use "Sugar, Sugar" from Laurie Zentz's Percussion Play-Alongs, the theme from Hawaii 5-0, AND any other new piece that we want to try!!
Who Wants To Be A Music Millionaire - I make up questions for this and we play as a class on the overhead.
Musical Go Fish - I made instrument cards and laminated them, enough for four decks. We play in groups of four.
Floor Staff Twister - I make a floor staff with electrical tape each year. We lay it just like you would regular twister, except on the staff. For example, right foot - G... left hand - F.

I have a large floor staff and have two teams. Two people are on the staff at a time but the next person in line can help them. Because we play in teams, they get a point when the other person falls or gets the wrong line or space.

Musical Tic-Tac-Toe - I have a blank grid that I fill with current music vocabulary. We have two teams and they try to make a tic-tac-toe by defining the words correctly.
Tennis Ball Rhythm - Each child gets a tennis ball and we stand in four rows. We warm-up with one row each of whole notes, half, quarter, and eighths. We do this to "Stars and Stripes Forever," or any piece that has a very strong beat! After we get good at this, we do each pattern for eight counts and then move to the next pattern. I have this displayed on the (Laurie Zentz's) Heart Chart at the front of the room.
Extreme Bop-It - I have several, and we play in circles. (I have picked these up at my local Goodwill for a fraction of the cost of new! Keep your eyes open! It's garage sale time, you know!)
The Rhythm Name Game and The Rhythm Instrument Game - These two games are circle games. There is a 4 beat pattern: patch patch clap clap snap snap. Snaps are quarter notes. The leader starts by saying their name on the first snap and then someone else's name on the second snap. Then, that person says their name on the first snap and someone else's on the second snap. You keep doing this at random until someone messes up and then they stand on the outside of the circle continuing the body percussion. I usually have a practice run with younger classes and we just go around the circle in order the first time. The we do a random pattern.

I usually sing game songs for my K-2nd graders. My standards are the "Penny Song," "The Button And The Key," "Punchinello and Bluebird." (I learned all of these from my study in ETM.) We will also sing game songs from the book 123, Echo Me by Loretta Mitchell, which is back in publication! Yeah! I also try to do the Hokey Pokey and Looby Loo a couple of times a year. We will do these the old-fashioned way AND with colored scarves and pipe cleaners made into notes and percussion instruments.