Going Places Level: Early Grades - Skills & games

Roll the Ball (pulse, tempo, structure)

For this game, you need sing-song voices and medium sized, spongy balls, one between two. In pairs, the children sit facing each other with wide, outstretched legs and feet touching. The idea is to roll the ball in time with the singing, giving an idea of timing and structure. The best way to teach this is to model it with one of the children as your partner.

Hint - there's a little wait, just enough time to take a big breath, after the word 'again'. If the children rush on, you can put in an extra word 'and' before starting the next time.

• Roll the ball
• Hold it still
• Roll it back again

Hi-Lo, Hi-Lo (pitch)

You need hula hoops for this game, enough for one per child, and a fairly large space is needed to lay them on the ground. Although I don't generally use a piano much in my teaching, it's useful for this game because there's a lot of difference between high and low pitch notes (cover the middle keys with a cloth so that they can't be used). If you don't have a piano, use the longest and shortest chime bars you have, or the biggest xylophone (take the middle bars off first). You will first need to play and sing some high and low pitched notes and name them as high or low until the children begin to understand that it's pitch that changes, not volume - the game then reinforces their perception of pitch.

Everyone sings the song as they walk round and round, weaving in between the hoops. At the end of each verse, choose a different child to come out and play either very high or very low notes. If the note is high, the children jump into a 'boat' (a hoop) and stretch up high, and if the note is low, they crouch down low in the 'sea' (not in a hoop).

Down the Road (pulse)

A song for practising walking in time to a song.

• Down the road
• Down the road
• Everybody walk together
• Down the road