After school music clubs

There is nothing better than taking a group of children outside to play singing games in the sun! The fresh air, the sun on your face, happy laughing children – you can’t beat it!! A while back I played ‘Down by the banks of the Hanky Panky’ with 60 children out on the playground. We could have gone on for hours! I love teaching clapping games to groups of children and see them take ownership, teaching them to others during break times.

What are the benefits of such games? Amazing cooperation, co-ordination (both fine and gross motor skills), total inclusion, turn-taking, decision making and high levels of social interaction.

Have you ever felt that your class are just too hyper or excited or can’t calm down?  These games are a great way to channel that amazing energy and excitement. The children often find the games great fun and many find they want to continue in small groups when the lesson is over and they have spare time.  I used to play French skipping and clapping games all the time as a child with my sister in our back garden – and I loved the challenge of playing games that required more and more skill. Wouldn’t it be great to give our children more and more of these experiences at school and to take away with them? To motivate them with their own personal goals in remembering and playing games? Great childhood memories and great skill-development all in one!

I read somewhere that singing games for children are a kind of precursor to more teenage dances such as barn dances and I can see why. The children are interacting and socialising with each other constantly and positive social interaction can only be a good thing in a world where social media threatens to take over a large chunk of our personal interaction. I say let’s get back to singing games for our gorgeous primary children!!!

A great idea is to set your children the task to ask their parents if they can remember games from their own childhoods – and see if you can then teach these same games to the class.

With the sun coming out it’s a great time to take the children out on to the playground and have some fun! If you’d like to take a free trial of all our singing games you will be able to immediately find some that would work perfectly with your particular class –  while the sun is still shining!

The moment you have your totally free (no obligation) entry, you can start watching all the videos of the singing games and straight away show them to your children on the whiteboard. It is so easy to get the learning going this way!

If you would like to incorporate these games into lesson plans, they are there for you too!

Here’s to singing games, sunshine, ideas and great fun with our children!

To access the free trial please go to http://www.activemusicdigital.co.uk and click on ‘start free trial’.