Customer Reviews

101 Music Games for Children: Fun and Learning with Rhythm and Song (SmartFun Activity Books)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Being a music educator, I purchased this book in hopes toenhance my music program. I have found it hard in the past to find musical games that young children can enjoy outside of musical chairs! With this book, I will never have that problem. To insure that my students have FUN learning music, we spend the last part of class playing one of these games. It is easy to do because this book provides you with a guide indicating age appropriateness, how long the game takes (5 min., 15 min., 30 min., etc.), specific number of players needed, and instruments and/or props if needed. Oh, did I mention that you don't have to be a kid to love these games? Well, you don't! There are games in here for those competitive music know-it-alls like myself! Did I mention that this book is great for planning parties? Forget the clown, it's usually a rip off anyway! Besides, music and parties go hand in hand! Last, it's a totally great book! ...

I am a music therapy student and I used this book in constructing activities for music classes at a summer camp. This book had so many ideas for activities with music materials and ideas that were easily adaptable to fit the groups' needs. I especially love that few of these games really have a single winner, so everyone gets to participate and enjoy. I would highly recommend this for music therapists and educators as well as anyone else looking for this type of game for children.

This is a good book for music teachers to have, but don't expect to use all 101 games. Many are variations on a theme, are impratical in the classroom, or simply are not very musical. An example of this is a game where students have to act out the titles of songs, like Charades. Sure, it'd probably be fun, but it's hard to say what the students are actually learning about music from that. I'd say there's 10-15 games I think I might use - or leave for a sub to use. I also would modify most of them to make them more appropriate for a limited classroom space.

After reading the raving reviews I ordered the book - I needed ideas and help because I'm a music teacher who is now teaching elementary music, yet I had limited experience in that area. I couldn't afford the Kodaly books, so I thought this would be a good start.
What a disappointment! A lot of the games involve blindfolding the students, which isn't appropriate in classrooms anymore, especially because most elementary music classes will have 20-30 kids, no matter what size the school. On top of that, the games don't actually involve the kids singing much - there are rhythm games, but good ones are very few.
Overall, this book seems very outdated in it's ideas and games. It wasn't a wise investment for me.

This book is SO GREAT for teaching music and music themes at home. It works for any number of children, but it is best for a small group of about 3-6. I used it with only one, and it worked ok with some modification. Great variety of games that kids really enjoy playing!

Music is fun for play and doesn't always have to be taken so seriously. These well thought-out games are adaptible for so many different moods integrating the rhythum and beauty of auditory art into activity for kids.

This book gives a great starting point for creating your own games. It was not as musically educational as I had hoped. I have derived a lot of my own ideas from this book or modified games within it. This book is functional but I was not "WOWed" by it.

I borrowed this book to get some ideas for my K - 5th grade classroom music students. I have around 30 students per class and I found that this book had limited usability for me. There were some good ideas, some that just wouldn't work, and some that weren't really that focused on music. I think that out of all 101 games, I only really liked about half a dozen. Not enough of a resource for me to want to purchase the book for myself.

This book has many ideas that a creative music teacher could use as a jumping off point. The games are straight forward and in general easy to teach to students.

I have used this book continuously over the last 3 years both in the classroom, summer camp groups, and private lessons. There are some fun ideas for groups not entirely focused on music as well. Church youth groups, non-musical camps, and non-musical classrooms can use this book to come up with fun game days or ice breakers.

[...]