Last week on the blog, we talked about how to prepare and organize your station and small group activities. Today I’m going to show you a quick rundown of some of my favorite small group activities for spring! Most of these could also be used as whole group activities if you are social distancing! I rotate through these each year and pull different ones for different groups. These are just a few of my favorites!
Treble/Bass Clef Rainbows
I love using crafts in my elementary classroom. In my opinion, the older they get, the less my students get to enjoy fun stuff like that. These rainbows are a great way to review lines and spaces! They also make a great hallway display! If you’re working on learning dynamics, I also have a version for that!
Spring Themed Worksheets
These Spring Worksheets from Sara Bibee are one of my favorite small group activities. My students LOVE the coloring worksheets and basically revolt if there isn’t one in our station rotation. Sara has a set of these for pretty much every season/holiday and I have them all! Since she includes so many concepts in the set, they can work great for assessment!
Spring Pitch Puzzles
One of my favorite stations to include in my rotations is a puzzle station. My students are engaged the whole time as they try to find all the matches to these spring pitch puzzles. When making these, I use a few different colors of Astrobrights to copy them. This gives the kids a better chance of matching them.
Spring Interactive Rhythm Game
If you haven’t tried the interactive games from Linda McPherson, you’re totally missing out! I can always count on her to have an amazing game for any concept I need! This game is GREAT for rhythmic dictation and I’ll be using it with my Kindergarten through 2nd grade kiddos!
Digital Spring Games
I’m really loving the digital games right now. My kiddos love playing them, but they’re also perfect for my online kids too. These spring digital games are awesome to include in stations AND put online for my virtual students. What I love most is that they’re self correcting. So, if the students click on the wrong answer, they get a chance to try it again. They also loop so you won’t hear the dreaded “I’m done!” I plan on using the instrument family versions with my third grade kiddos in preparation for their orchestral instruments unit coming up!
Easter Egg Shakers
I thought I would include a bonus activity for you in this blog post. One of my favorite activities to do in spring is to make Easter Egg Shakers! I do this every year with PreK and Kindergarten.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Plastic Easter Eggs
- Rice (or other filling)
- Electrical Tape
- Washi Tape
- Sharpie
I usually do this activity on a day where the rest of the kiddos are doing stations. This way, I can just pull 4-5 at a time to make their egg. I have the students partially fill their egg with rice then close it. Then, I tape it shut with electrical tape. This step is important…believe me, you don’t want rice scattered all over your floor. Once it’s taped, I let them choose some fun patterned washi tape and put over the electrical tape. Finally, I use the Sharpie to put their initials on the bottom of the egg. These are a HUGE hit with my little kids!
Happy Spring!
I hope this blog post was helpful in helping you find some fun springtime activities for your music classroom! If you have any other favorites, make sure to leave a comment below or DM me on Instagram and tell me about it!
