Winter Wonderland Music Game

This week for music time I covered a box with snowflake wrapping paper. Inside the box I had about eight cups of packing foam nuggets/peanuts. On forty-five of the nuggets I had written page numbers of songs the children knew. I also had put a small table fan, face down, in the box. The base of the fan was sticking out the back of the box so I could turn it on and off. When the fan was on high, it would make the peanuts fly around in the air like a snow storm. I had made a window so the children could see the “snow” flying around. I had covered the window opening with a cut open large plastic ziplock bag.  I cut a hole in the side of the box so the children could stick their hands into the box and try and catch a “snowflake”.

We played Name That Tune with the songs. First I had the children find a song. I started the fan and had each child take a turn catching a snowflake until a song number was found. Then after that, each blank snowflake they caught represented a note. When they found another song, that’s where we stopped. The pianist then played the amount of notes they earned (up to five), and the children guessed what song it was.  If they could tell me some words in the song, I let them have it. The person who guessed what song it was got to decide if they wanted to sing that song or not. If the children couldn’t guess what song it was I got to decide if I wanted them to sing the song. 

I wanted each child to have a turn catching the snowflakes, but after that I had one child catch snowflakes until that child found a song. Then I chose another child to be the helper. It went faster that way, and I could choose children that were being reverent to be the helpers.

Note: The bigger packing nuggets I had to cut in half to get them to fly around, but you need to make sure you have a good safety cover on your fan so they don’t get through the grill.

 I got this wonderful idea from Cindee Alexander on Sugardoodle. Thank you Cindee.