For teachers · ages 4 to 10 · one screen for the whole class
Music games for the classroom: ten that play on the board.
Put a laptop or tablet on the projector, turn the speakers up, and the whole class plays together from one screen, with one child at the microphone at a time. Each game says its age, how long a round takes, how loud the room gets and whether it needs the microphone. Roughly pre-K to fourth grade.
Mika: On the board I play first, loud enough for the back row. Then I listen to one child at a time.
No screen today? Music games for primary school has 33 games written out for voices and bodies alone. Covering someone else’s class? Substitute music lesson runs minute by minute.
Ten games, one screen
- Listening · the class votesHigher or lower?
Whole room, hands up or down. Two tones come from the speakers; everybody votes with a hand, high in the air or down at the knees, and a different child taps the room’s answer each round. The tones creep closer with every right one.
5–10 years · one round 5 min · quietears - Listening · stand or sitSame or different?
Two short tunes from the speakers. Stay seated for same, stand up for different, then one child taps. A changed note stays in key, so the class has to really listen; the tunes grow from three notes to six.
5–10 years · one round 5 min · quietears - Rhythm · everyone, then oneClap it back
The whole class claps Mika’s two bars back together first. Then one child at a time claps into the microphone or taps the big circle, and the class mode’s Next child button brings on the next one: no list of names, no points. Three speeds.
5–10 years · one round 5 min · loudmic or tap - Voice · the youngestEcho singing
The class sings the little tune back softly, all together; then one child sings it near the microphone and everyone hears that child’s echo on a glockenspiel. A different tune counts as the child’s own invention.
3–8 years · one round 5 min · a bit loudmic - Voice · four singersSing the note
One note fills the board as a big card in its colour. In class mode four children each sing one note, and the four become a melody the class hears at the end. “A little higher” instead of a wrong.
4–10 years · one round 5 min · a bit loudmic - Voice · one glide eachVoice Rocket
One child glides their voice like a siren and the rocket flies across the projector while the class watches. The sky fits that child’s voice, so nobody reaches for a high note. A round is a few seconds, so many children get a turn.
4–10 years · one round 3 min · a bit loudmic - Voice · note namesWhat note am I singing?
A child sings one note; Mika plays it back on a glockenspiel, says its name and shows the key. The class sings the named note back together. A note between two keys is called close, never wrong.
4–10 years · one round 3 min · a bit loudmic - Instruments · BoomwhackersBoomwhacker colours
One child hums a short tune; the board shows it in C major as big tiles in the Boomwhacker colours, and whoever holds that colour plays when its tile lights up. Full-screen view for the projector, three tempos.
6–10 years · one round 10 min · loudmic - Instruments · recorderRecorder: which note was that?
The fingering is big enough to read from the back row. The class fingers along silently while one child plays the note for two seconds; the page names what it heard and gives a breath tip instead of a “wrong”.
6–10 years · one round 10 min · a bit loudmic - Science table · bottlesWater glass experiment
A table at the front with five plastic bottles and a jug. One child pours while the class reads the board: a little more water, or pour some off, until the five play a scale. Ends with a tune to play on the bottles.
4–8 years · one round 15 min · a bit loudmic
By the time you have
Three plans built from the games above. Each starts with listening, so the room is quiet before the first voice.
5 minutes: a break between subjects
- 0–3 · Higher or lower?
Three rounds, every hand voting.
- 3–5 · Clap it back
Two rhythms, all clapping together, no microphone.
15 minutes: a music block
- 0–5 · Same or different?
Standing and sitting; the tunes get longer.
- 5–10 · Echo singing
All together first, then three or four children alone.
- 10–15 · Clap it back
Class mode, one child after the other.
30 minutes: a short lesson that ends in a song
- 0–5 · Higher or lower?
Hands up, hands down.
- 5–10 · Sing the note
Class mode, four singers, one melody.
- 10–15 · Clap it back
The loud part, while the energy is there.
- 15–25 · Boomwhacker colours
If you have tubes; otherwise Voice Rocket, one glide each.
- 25–30 · Brumm Kids
One child hums two bars, the class hears its song.
In class
You set one laptop or tablet on the projector with speakers, choose a game by the minutes left, and run it from the front while the class answers with hands, voices and claps. A round takes three to fifteen minutes, so one game fills a break between subjects or a lesson’s last five minutes, and three in a row make a 15-minute music block. The room needs a screen everyone can see, speakers the back row can hear, a quiet moment whenever a child is at the microphone, and for two games their materials: a set of Boomwhackers, or five plastic bottles and a jug of water. No accounts, no pupils’ names, nothing to install.
Setting up the board
Any laptop, tablet or phone with an up-to-date browser, connected to the projector or interactive board and to speakers. The microphone is the device’s own: one child stands about an arm’s length away and sings or plays. When the whole class sings into it at once, the page hears a crowd and can’t pick out one note, so the class sings together and one child sings for the page.
The browser asks for the microphone the first time a child taps; allow it once. It listens only during a round, a few seconds at a time. In a noisy room, the two listening games and Clap it back by tapping need no microphone at all.
For teachers
No game has a winner, a score table or a child who is out. A miss plays the round again; a child who would rather not sing alone sings with the class, claps, or passes, and nobody has to say why.
The games keep nothing: what a child sings stays on the device and nothing is uploaded. A song made in Brumm Kids stays on that device too; if you want to send one home, ask the parents first when a child’s voice is in it (Privacy).
This page is new and hasn’t been through a real class with us yet. If you use it, write to hello@brumm.ai and tell us what the children did.