"Tried & True" Music Classroom Icebreaker Bundle / First Day Music Activities

This bundle includes the "Would You Rather for the Music Classroom" , "2 Truths and a Lie for the Music Classroom", "Never Have I Ever for the Music Classroom", and "Find Someone Who... BINGO" Resources. These are tried and true in my classroom and my students have LOVED these activities over the years. It's great not just for the beginning of the year, but done throughout the school year.

Note: This bundle has been updated to include the a "Find Someone Who" BINGO Activity!

Would You Rather:

“Would You Rather” cards are great for getting to know your music students any time of year! These are especially great during back-to-school and are perfect if you have a few minutes remaining in class. These cards are great for getting to know your students through virtual / distance learning as well!

This product features 30 question cards, blank cards for you or your students to create your own prompts, and writing prompt pages for student journaling.

These questions will help you get to know your students and help them get to know each other. Students love this activity and it is great for facilitating higher level and critical thinking. Not only do students have to choose between two options, you can extend the activity by having students explain their thinking behind their choice.

Ideas of ways to use:

• Put cards at centers for discussion or journaling
• Display on the board for a whole class discussion (You can have kids choose by a show of hands and then facilitate a discussion.)
• Have students discuss in pairs
• Use the question as a classroom poll or for attendance (Display the question slide on the board, and students can indicate their answers by writing their name underneath their choice, or with magnets.)
• Have students come up with their own creative “Would You Rather” questions to pose to the class.

2 Truths and a Lie:

“2 Truths and a Lie” for the Music Classroom is a great activity to get to know your students any time of the year, especially during distance learning!

Not only do students beg for this activity, you build a classroom community from students getting to learn fun facts about you and each other, and you get to learn about their musical experience and preferences as well.

I usually have kids make a card at the beginning of the year, and I read one to two students' cards at the end of each class period. They look forward to it each period and can't wait for their turn!

There are many ways you can use this activity. You can choose the method that works best for you, or modify any of these to suit your needs. The file outlines 2 ways that I've found works best for my students. This would work great during distance learning as well.

The file includes directions, prompts you can display to your students if they need ideas, 2 different worksheets depending on what works for your classroom, and a blank example page for you to write 2 Truths and a Lie for your students to guess when you are explaining this activity!

Never Have I Ever:

“Never Have I Ever” cards are great for getting to know your music students any time of year! These are especially great during back-to-school and are perfect if you have a few minutes remaining in class.

These questions will help you get to know your students and help them get to know each other. These are all music related "Never Have I Ever" questions.

There are several ways to play, which I outline more in detail in the product. You can choose one based on the amount of time you have left and what works best for your class. You can project the cards on the screen and can play the 'traditional' way by having kids hold up fingers and put fingers down when a statement applies to them, you can play with candy, or by having kids hold up signs for "I have" and "I have never" for different statements. The 'traditional' way is great and easy for synchronous distance learning!

This product includes 30 "Never Have I Ever" music statements to project, blank cards for you to create your own and project, "I Have"/"I Have Never" cards to print in B/W for kids to hold up if you play it that way, and also blank cards for students to submit their own "Never Have I Ever" statements for you to collect and read to the class or project on the screen to play! There is a PDF and PowerPoint version for you to choose from.

Find Someone Who:

“Find Someone Who” is a great icebreaker and community building game for the music classroom, and my students enjoy it every year! Learn more about your students, and have your students learn more about each other!

Directions:

•Each student receives one “Find Someone Who” board. Each student receives an identical board.

•The goal is for students to walk around the room and talk to their classmates, finding someone who fits each of the criteria on the board. If they’ve found someone who fits that criteria, they get their classmate to sign their name on their board. (for example, if Ellen finds that Jonny loves performing, Jonny would write his name in the “Loves to Perform” box on Ellen’s board).

•To encourage students to talk to as many classmates as possible, I make it so that students can only sign another student’s board ONCE. However, depending on your class size, you can do whatever works for your classroom!

•Students walk and talk, mingling with each other, trying to complete as many as they can.

•Depending on the amount of time allocated for the activity, you can have students go for as many as they can get in “x” minutes, go 5 in a row, a black-out, an “X”, etc. Your choice!

•Once time is up, call all your students back together and lead a discussion for YOU to learn more about your students! Many of these will spark a great discussion.

•I usually go down the chart and ask students to raise their hand if… (insert “Find Someone Who” topic here).

•Example: “Raise your hand if you’ve been to a concert.” This then sparks students to discuss what concert they’ve attended, and this lets you learn about their experiences as well.

•Some of my favorites are hearing about what teachers they’ve run into over the summer (students have told me they’ve seen me at the grocery store!),hearing about who can name/remember a music class game we’ve played, etc.

Have fun getting to know your students in a fun and musical way!