For teachers and after-school clubs · ages 6 to 10 · no materials
No instruments in the room, no materials, no printer? Then play with what every child brings along: hands, feet, voice and ears. Plus four games in the browser that need nothing but a phone.
Mika: In the forest across the street I play without an instrument too. Here you do the same.
With materials and instruments: all 33 games, the boomwhackers and the recorder are on Music games for primary school.
Mika plays two notes, the class points up or down. One phone at the front, turned up, is enough.
5–10 years · one round 5 min · quietearsTwo short tunes, thumbs up or a wiggling hand. Calm, at the desk.
5–10 years · one round 5 min · quietearsA child sings a note, Mika plays it back and says which it was. No “wrong”, just “very close to G”.
4–10 years · one round 3 min · a bit loudmicMika claps two bars, a child claps them back. Works without a mic too, by tapping.
5–10 years · one round 5 min · loudmic + ears
Every game with age, minutes, noise level and whether you need to stand up. No game has losers.
Your body has four floors: stamp at the bottom, then pat your thighs, clap, and click at the top. You call out a floor and everyone plays it on the beat until you call the next. Then a pattern through all four.
Ground floor! And now: first floor. Who can make it right to the top without falling off the beat?
Can’t click yet? Rub your hands instead, it counts just the same.
A storm that moves through the class. Your hand points at one group after another: rub hands, click, pat, stamp. Then the whole thing backwards until only one child is rubbing their hands, and then none.
You only join in when my hand points at you, and you do what I’m doing.
You clap a four-beat pattern, the class claps it back. Then a rest goes in, where everyone puts a finger to their lips. The rest is the hardest beat.
Where I’m silent, you’re silent too. You have to be able to hear the rest.
In pairs, facing each other. One child plays a slow rhythm on their own body: knees, chest, hands. The other mirrors it so exactly that nobody can tell who started. Swap after a minute.
You’re a mirror. A mirror is never faster than the child in front of it.
Animal names have rhythm: “dog” is one beat, “kit-ten” two, “cro-co-dile” three. The class says and claps each animal four times. Then three groups, three animals, all at once: a whole zoo.
Dog, dog, dog, dog. Now the kittens join in, and the crocodiles wait.
Ages 8–10: The children invent an animal with four syllables.
The whole class has a chorus, four bars of stamping and clapping. In between, one child alone invents four beats each time. Chorus, one child, chorus, the next child: a piece everyone has helped to write.
After the chorus it’s your turn. Four beats, anything you like. Then everyone comes back in.
Each group gets a sound made only with the mouth: drops (click your tongue), wind (blow softly), bee (hum), engine (flutter your lips). You conduct who plays, who stops, and when everyone plays together.
You’re the orchestra, I’m the conductor. You only play when I point at you.
Three groups. You hum each group its note, one after another, and each one holds its own. Together it sounds like an organ. When everyone is steady, one group changes its note and the colour of the sound changes.
Hold your note, even when the others hum something else. Listen to how it sounds together.
You sing two to five notes on “la” and the class sings them back. Step by step first, then with a jump, then a little tune to remember. Children who don’t like singing show the notes with their hand.
Listen first, then sing. If you like, you can sing along with just your hand.
The voice rides up and down with your hand on “oo”, slowly, then in jumps. Nobody has to go right to the top: everyone only goes as high as is comfortable.
The lift stops where it feels good. The top floor is not a must.
A song everyone knows, only whispered, but exactly in rhythm. Then just moving your lips. At the end, the last line out loud.
Whisper, but on the beat. And now only your lips.
The register, sung. You sing a name on the cuckoo call, high and low, and the child sings “I am here” back on the same tune. Speaking or whispering it is right too.
I sing your name, you sing: “I am here.”
Half a minute with eyes closed, just listening. Who found the quietest sound in the room? Who found one from outside?
You’re detectives. You’re looking for the quietest sound there is in here.
You hum a song everyone knows, without words. Whoever recognises it puts a finger on their nose. When everyone is ready, the class whispers the name. Then a child may hum.
Don’t call out. Finger on your nose when you know it.
You clap softly behind your back, two to seven times. Everyone shows on their fingers how many. Harder: once with a rest in the middle.
Eyes closed, count silently. Show me the number when I stop.
You hum a high note: everyone stands on tiptoe. A low one: everyone crouches. One in the middle: stand normally. Then a tune, and the body rides along.
High notes live up top, low ones right at the bottom. Where does this one live?
At the desk: just with the hands, knees to head.
You say a steady beat, “tum, tum, tum”, and everyone walks to it, one step on every “tum”. Faster, slower, standstill. For ages 8 to 10, a child sets the beat.
Your feet listen to my voice. When I’m silent, so are you.
You sing, everyone dances. When you stop, everyone freezes. Nobody is out: whoever wobbles is just a wobbly statue and keeps dancing.
When I stop singing, you’re made of stone. Wobbling is allowed.
In pairs, standing face to face. You hum a calm tune, one child moves very slowly to it, the other mirrors. When the tune ends, they swap.
So slowly that the mirror can always keep up.
The whole class claps exactly once, together, when you raise your eyebrows. No counting, just watching. When it sounds like one, the lesson is over.
Clap when I raise my eyebrows. Not before.
Everything here runs on bodies, voices and ears; the phone is only there for the four games at the top. No game has losers, none has a ranking, and whoever doesn’t like singing may hum, whisper, clap or watch. The games are music-lesson classics and need no sheet music, no recorded songs, nothing to print.
A ready-made lesson with every sentence to read out: Substitute music lesson. How children make their own tune with a beat using their voice: Your own tune in 20 minutes.
In the phone games the microphone only switches on when a child taps; the sound stays on the phone, nothing is uploaded (Privacy at Brumm Kids).
This page is new. If you try a game, tell us what worked and what didn’t: hello@brumm.ai.