Spring time is festival season for my orchestra classes and every day we work extra hard to perfect our pieces. A couple weeks before festivals, I change the format of my rehearsals so that I am not teaching new concepts and we focus only on our concert music. I try to keep the class working intensely while keeping a quick pace to make as much progress as possible . I appreciate the work that my students do in my class. I want them to learn to work hard, but I also want them to have fun. After a long week of diligent practice, I played a simple game with my classes to re-energize them and get them ready for yet another rehearsal.
This game is super simple, but it changed the atmosphere of my class to be fun and it helped students to re-commit to do their best. For the game, I asked questions to a student volunteer. The student was only allowed to answer with one word ...a word that I selected....and they had to say that word without smiling and laughing. We talked about how intensely one must concentrate and focus in order to NOT smile. For example, one word might be 'sausage.' I asked questions, and the student had to say 'sausage' in response to every question. Other funny words could be: pickle, dandruff, slugs...
After I demonstrated the game by asking a few students questions, I wanted to entire class to have the opportunity, so I let stand partners ask each other questions. It was so fun to watch my students interact with each other and have fun for a few minutes. We all needed a few minutes to laugh. It's a silly game, but students really took the message to heart. They were able to concentrate and work through another rehearsal and they did a great job.
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