Simpedia

Nicole O., California

In a workshop that includes a range of levels:

Writing lyrics to a common song (students don’t know which song). Write the number of syllables they’ll need for each sentence. They choose a theme and come up with sentences about their theme. When they’ve completed the lyrics, one student plays the common song (could be a Level 1 song) and everyone sings. Switch students a couple of times and move on to the next activity.

Laurie Richards, Nebraska

Split the students into groups of 2 or 3; each group decides on a ‘type’ of storm to play by creating their own arrangement of Night Storm. For example, it might be sprinkling (Am chord notes in high range), followed by a light rain and that’s it. Or they could add thunder however they like (e.g. using the accompaniment arrangement in low range). They can add whatever they’d like to the original Night Storm.

Give them 10 minutes or so, then each group (or representative of each group) plays the arrangement and the other groups guess what kind of storm they played.

You could also have different types of storms preprinted on slips of paper to expedite it.