Icebreakers / Class Intros

Resources

NAFME has this great page of quick ideas to wake up a class.

Some Ideas

• Hotseat - Teacher begins on the "hotseat." Students have 2 minutes to ask any school-related question. Then students take turns with 30 seconds each.
• Turn to your neighbor - Have students turn to their neighbor and ask/answer simple questions, such as, "What are you doing this weekend?" or "What is your favorite dessert?"
• Sing warm-ups with everyone's first name - Choose a student's name and go up and down a pentachord with his/her name on every note.
• Quick group patterns. Make up 3-4 tonal or rhythm patterns that agree harmonically/metrically and write them on enough slips of paper or cards for all students to get one. (Note: Depending on where your students are at, this could be using solfege syllables, stick notation, or actual proper music notation. Whatever works!) Students have 2 minutes to find everyone with the same pattern and figure out what it sounds like. Then have each group perform, followed by the whole class.
• Switch seats. Good for a SUPER fast get-up-and-move moment. Have everyone stand and switch chairs with the personal next to them. That's it. Sometimes I do this 4-5 times in one rehearsal just to keep things moving.
• STOMP Rhythm Compositions. Split the students into small groups. Give them 5-10 minutes to make up a STOMP-like percussion performance. You can take this in a lot of directions - you could limit it to body percussion; you could give each group similar items they must incorporate (like a prop bag of seemingly random objects); or you could give them a day's notice and have them bring in items. This could also be turned into a full class-period project, especially if you have them perform for each other. You could also record these and potentially turn it all into a performance piece!
• I Have/Who Has. You could make up cards yourself or pay $12 on Teachers Pay Teachers to download it already done. Basically, it's a rhythm-reading, chain of rhythms game. If you want more info, just Google "I have who has rhythm game."
• Poison. There are many variations of Poison - Poison Pattern, Poison Rhythm, and Poison Note are a few. Basically, you choose a rhythm pattern, tonal pattern, or a solfege tone that you tell the class is poison. You then go through you patterns or scales or whatever, and then students must NOT repeat any poisons patterns/notes. Kids seem to LOVE Poison games!
• 2 Minutes of Praise. Personally, I begin each class with a short challenge - often an abbreviated version of one of these activities. Following that, we do "2 Minutes of Praise," in which students raise their hands if they have something positive to share. I toss a ball around for this (I save it only for Praise Time, making it special.) and whoever has the ball gets to talk. I worried about it going on too long, but it's never really been a problem, and the kids like the chance to share little things. We also use this chant to get started.
• Compose with dice. Have the students compose rhythms or whole songs by giving them a key that relates each number on the dice to a particular note value. You can do this as a worksheet that needs to be filled in with rhythms or just have them work from blank paper. You could also do this melodically by having them roll two dice each time - once for a rhythm and once for a tone. You can also purchase blank dice and put the note values directly on the dice with a Sharpie. In fact, I'm loving that idea so much, I might pop over to Amazon real quick. Be right back... ...Okay, I'm back. 100 blank dice headed my way!
• Fairy Tale Mashup. Put students in groups of 4-5 students. I often do this by handing them colored slips of paper as they come in and then showing them where each color should meet. Each group is assigned a fairy tale and a familiar song (e.g. Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle, Row Row Row Your Boat, etc.). Their challenge is to make up new lyrics to the familiar tune that tell the Fairy Tale story. This idea was found in a discussion thread on choralnet.org and was suggested by Kate Deglans.
• Quizzes. (This is also under Assessments.) I use this a lot for formative assessments. The kids can play and compete in class (This is a lot like Kahoot, but I personally like it better.). You can go back later and download a spreadsheet of their scores and enter them as a grade. This is a great way to have a fun moment while quickly assessing where kids are at. I'm building a new set of quizzes, but here's a small collection of mine you can use!