Okay…I need to confess something. I’ve had this strong and weak beat lesson saved on my Pinterest for like 5 years and I’ve never taught it! I was looking for a way to reinforce strong and weak beats with my 2nd graders and to continue meter with my 3rd graders. Enter: this glorious gem of an activity!
The original idea for this lesson comes from Jennifer at Yellow Brick Road. Thank you so much for this awesome activity!
As I mentioned, I did this activity with 2nd-3rd, but you could absolutely do it with your older kids, too. My classroom is WAY too small for this so we go outside (or in the hall if it’s raining).
The first part of the lesson involves teaching the song Bounce High, Bounce Low. Most of my kids know this from previous years. However, my school is very transient and anytime we “bring back” a song, I reteach it because there are inevitably new kids who don’t know it.
Time to Move!
In order to do this activity, you’ll need enough tennis balls or dodge balls for each kiddo in your class. We borrowed smaller dodge balls from our PE teacher and they were perfect! Jennifer suggested using balloons for students who are struggling, so you might want to have some of those on hand as well.
Once your kiddos are comfortable singing the song, show them how to bounce the ball on beat one and catch it on beat two. In other words, bounce the ball on the strong beat and catch it on the weak beat.
Pro tip: Have them “air bounce” (without a ball) while you demonstrate this.
Make sure to emphasize that we are bouncing on the strong beat only! They should be able to hear the ball make a strong beat when it hits the floor.
Then, I hand out balls to every student and we try it together. Before you ask, yes, it was chaos. 😜 But the kids had SO much fun! Here is where you can use balloons for the kiddos who need a little less weight to bounce. If you’re outside, though, make sure to keep the balloons out of the grass!
It took my students a few minutes to really get the hang of bouncing the ball in rhythm. We stood in a circle on the basketball court so that they could see everyone else and match up with the rhythm of the song.
If they are struggling to sing and bounce together, have them say “STRONG” and “weak” as they bounce. As they do that, sing the song so they can hear the correlation. This should help them grasp the concept a little better. Then slowly graduate them back to singing and bouncing simultaneously.
Here’s an example of when we did it in the classroom (it was crazy rainy this day!). Like I said, it’s chaos, but the kids had SO much fun!
Extension Activities
Now that they’re comfortable with bouncing the ball and singing the song, let’s make it a little more challenging! I partnered my kids up and had them bounce the ball back and forth for a while! This one blew their minds!
- Beat 1 (Strong): Johnny bounces
- Beat 2 (Weak): Suzy catches
- Beat 1 (Strong: Suzy bounces
- Beat 2 (Weak): Johnny catches
They REALLY enjoyed this part of the game. We talked alot about teamwork during this portion of the lesson. They really need to be in sync with their partner in order to keep the rhythm of the song! As they got better at it, they started combining their groups to make it even harder!
I hope this little activity gave you a fun new way to incorporate movement into a familiar song! Thank you again to Jennifer at Yellow Brick Road for the idea! Don’t be like me and wait 5 years to try it! But you should still pin this post so you can come back to it when you’re ready!
When you try this lesson, tag me on Instagram @musicfromb2z! I love seeing how other teachers incorporate this activity! Make sure to grab your FREE Google Slides Meter Game below!
