Beginning of the Year Music Activities and Name Games

You’re a new teacher, new to elementary, or ready to freshen up your day and week-1 elementary music activities. You’re nervous about getting started on the right foot. You don’t want to do too much talking but make expectations clear. Here are some tried, true, and new beginning of the year music activities.

Beginning of the Year Activities That Work

You want your beginning-of-the-year music activities to be that perfect combination of fun and learning while teaching routines and expectations. Here you’ll find some name games and activities that will have your students interacting on the very first day in music class.

Here’s a plan that worked for me year after year and is the perfect example of- “Variety is the spice of life.”

My Perfect Lesson Plan

• CONNECT: A very short bio about yourself that lets kids make a connection. Share whatever you’re comfortable sharing but they love to hear about hobbies, music taste, pets, and family.
• ROUTINES & PROCEDURES: Choose the routines and procedures that will be important for your teaching
• NAME GAMES: Pick one or two name games (below) that interest you and add it to your lesson plans. Using someone’s name is personal and a great way to connect to each other.
• SINGING GAME: End with a singing game! Check out singing games to immediately get kids singing and having fun.

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Name Games

Beginning of the year music activities should let the teacher and students hear and interact with student names. Here are some fun lessons for all grade levels.

Name Name, What’s the Name? (Grades 3-5)

Roll Call, Class (Grades 2-5)

This activity is a win-win-win!

• It’s quick and perfect for part of your class opening routine.
• It refreshes your memory of student names.
• It lets you hear every student sing a simple sol-mi.

Sitting in a circle works well although rows will work too. Ask for a student volunteer to go first.

The T sings

The student leader sings their first name on sol-mi. Without pausing the next student sings and on around the circle. Other considerations.

• Have Ss echo after each student sings.
• Make it a competition to see how quickly they can get all the way around the circle.
• Decide how you’ll handle those who speak rather than sing. Initially I would gently correct speakers and try to get them to sing. If we were doing a timed competition, at the end I’d add a second for every person who used a speaking voice. I did this without naming names.

The Never-Ending Name Game (K-6)

This lesson plan is best spread out over multiple days.

Lesson 1: Introduction

• Sitting in a circle works best
• Grades K-2
  1. T speaks every student’s first name and students echo
  2. T speaks and claps student’s first name and all students echo
  3. Ss clap and speak their own name and class echoes
  4. Ss clap and speak their own name and NO echoes, just right around the circle.
• Grades 3-5
  1. Same as K-2 above.
  2. Go around circle and Ss only clap their name, no speaking.
  3. Go around circle and class claps and speaks every student’s name.
  4. Go around circle and class claps, audiation/no speaking, everyone’s name.
  5. The class claps each student’s name going right around the circle (this is a fun challenge)

Rhythm & Accent

With 3-5, this is a great activity (if you choose) to talk about natural ways of speaking and rhythm. The name “Ellen.” Is it El-len with 2 quarter notes or with an eighth-dotted quarter pattern?
You can also talk about anacrusis. The name “Latasha.” Is it a two eighths/quarter pattern with the accent on “La” or two eighths/dotted quarter, with the accent on “ta?”

Lesson 2: Transfer to Instruments

• K-5 (Pick and choose from these ideas, although I tried to sequence them from easy to advanced)
  1. Take any part of the above activities and transfer to UPP. Drums are wonderful but you could also use rhythm sticks.
  2. Add a simple refrain to play after every 4 names. “Name game, name game. Let’s play a name game.”
  3. Create a class ostinato using 4 student names. Discuss which order sounds best. See if the class can play it over and over without rushing. Did you use just bass or tone sounds? Maybe add taps to side of drum or other ideas to create some diversity to the tone color if the students are able to remember the patterns.
  4. Drum Circle-teacher taps and speaks, “What’s your name?” and student taps and speaks their name. Go around the circle. Try the whole process again but with inner hearing.
     • Expand it: T taps/speaks, “What’s your name?” to a student then, “What’s their name?” to the class who tap/speak the student’s name. Go around the circle then do it again with inner hearing.

Lesson 3: Group Work

• Now…put students in groups of 4 and have them do the SAME activity and have them create a name ostinato. (It helps if you have the whole room practice several times with you keeping a stick or clave beat. I’d say, “Ok this may sound messy with all of us practicing at once, but concentrate on your group’s ostinato. 1-2-Ready-Go)You are walking around coaching and helping where needed.
  • Have them play AND speak the names the first time. Each group SHARES their ostinato with the class.
  • Now tell them they can keep their previous ostinato or change it but this time just playing it and NO speaking.
  • Try layering in (and out) the group ostinati. FUN!!!

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Jump In Jump Out (Grades 2-5)

Definitely a teacher and student favorite! Give it a try! It lets kids share something special about themselves.

4 Corners (Grades 2-5)

Preparation

Sitting in a circle works best.

• Teacher claps and speaks each student’s first name and the class echoes
• Students clap and speak their own name and the class echoes
• Have a discussion about syllables and then ask who has a name with 1 syllable, 2, 3, etc.
• As a class, go around the circle clapping and speaking each student’s name. (This is a fun challenge to keep it going with no stops)
• As a class, go around the circle clapping (no speaking) each student’s name. (An even bigger challenge!)

The Game

• The four corners are names with ONE syllable, TWO syllables, THREE syllables, and FOUR or more syllables.
• Students choose a corner and T draws a name out of a bowl. (or any method of randomly choosing from the class list)
• The number of syllables of that person’s name determines which corner is OUT.
• So if the name is Marcus, everyone standing at the 2-syllable corner is out.
• Play until there is one winner or you are out of names!

Blast Off Challenge (Grades K-3)

Sitting in a circle is best. The teacher can stand behind each student to facilitate the flow of the game/rhythms.

• Pick a starting point in the circle and then students clap and speak each student’s name FOUR times. Try to get the kids to feel the beats in 4 and move seamlessly from one student to the next.
• If they are successful, clap and speak each name THREE times. Their tendency is to pause after the third repeat to make it feel like 4 so that is a great time to talk about 3 vs. 4.
• If they are successful, clap and speak each name TWO times.
• Then, of course, ONE time and if successful, they earn a BLASTOFF! (see video below)

Variations

• Don’t pause between rotations but go directly from 4X to 3X, 2X, 1X, and Blastoff!
• If the class is quite proficient, try the entire process with clapping and only THINKING the names. Audiation!
• Kindergarten and first-grade students usually don’t know everyone’s name or know them well enough to keep within a beat scheme. Put them in groups of four and have them try saying and clapping everyone’s name in their group 4x, then on different days, 3X, 2X, and 1x. Each group can take a turn and share to the class. Check out my Columns and Rows system for quickly making groups of 4!

Beginning of the Year Music Activities

Madcap Rap (Grades 3-5)

Find great beginning of the year music activities by adapting them from other subjects! Here’s an example!

An art teacher on Instagram had a great way for kids to work together to create something unique. It was called Exquisite Corpse and began with a long piece of paper folded 4 times. The first child would draw something on the first folded area.

The next child would continue the drawing on the adjacent fold, then two more students adding on. When unfolded, it was a tall figure with 4 unique areas that looked kind of zany and very cool.

Free Game download

I thought, “Why not do it with a descriptive sentence that creates a rhythm?” Using the below columns, run off the words in each column, each column on a different color of paper.

Here’s a PDF with the four pages! Just copy and cut out the strips.

The mixed-up sentences will delight your students and get them working together to perform their Madcap Rap!

There are enough for a class of 32 but if you have fewer students, just make sure you hand out equal numbers of each color. If you have a number that isn’t divisible by 4, the teacher may have to step in to help out.

How to play

Have the students get in groups of four and say their sentences in your color order. For my example, the order would be red-orange-blue-green. The goal would be to try to say it with a good beat.

You might get “A spoon and fork were hiking in the mountains in the pouring rain. That’s so fire!”

Each group would get a turn “rapping” their sentence. The next step would be to ask all of the reds and blues to find a new group and repeat the above process. Ask the oranges and greens to find a new group for more madcap raps.

Add a fun mp3 loop for the performances!

FAQ: What does each child receive to play the game?

Every child gets a single strip from one of the 4 colors. Then they get in groups of 4 and the groups can only have ONE of each color-red, orange, blue, green.

Then they create their rap with red going first (subject) then orange (verb), etc. The goal is to say it to a beat, like a rap, and make it sound GOOD while knowing you might be saying something zany like, “A spoon and a fork (red) were lost in the park (orange) on a windy day (blue). Mind blown. (green)

OMGosh, if you have time maybe you could change a couple of the greens to “Rizz, Rizz” or “That’s so sigma.” After every group presents you could have them create NEW groups so “go create a new group of 4 colors and you can’t be with anyone from your first group.”

Body Shapes Movement (Grades K-5)

Start your beginning of the year music activities with this best-selling resource that will set a standard for calm and focused beginnings in your music classes. SEL is achieved through music and movement. See and hear a PDF and video preview on TPT.

Chime In

What are your favorite beginning of the year music activities? Leave a comment and let us know!