Last week I shared a few of the principles I use to structure my Pre-Twinkle group classes. 

We do weeks of classes at the beginning of the school year before any of the students start to bring their real violins, or even their cardboard violins, to the group lessons.

Here are 20 games I have in my back pocket to use with students who don’t have their instrument.

Not only are these games fun, but they disguise repetition of violin fundamentals and musicianship.

Big Movement

1. Walk to the music
   • Walk around the room while the pianist and/or teacher play a Book 1 piece.
   • Variations
     1. forwards for one phrase, backwards for the next
     2. Different moves for different dynamics
     3. Different moves for different extended techniques
     4. Freeze like a statue when I stop playing
2. Stretches
   • Stretch like animals: owl, kangaroo, turtle, cobra, giraffe, penguin
   • Correlate music sounds with the stretch. Play as students move. Direct the stretch by playing the sound
3. Higher and lower music, sing up a scale on parts of the body. Then you can relate this to a piece.
4. Musical instructions “stand up” (octave) “please pick up your violin” (up scale) “bows up, please” (up fifth)

Micro Movement

1. Pom-pom balls – use round and soft fingers to move pom-pom balls into different shapes
2. Balance erasers on hands (bow hand table, violin hand tables)
3. Finger agility in different languages – link
4. “Where is first (second, third, fourth) finger?” To the tune of Frere Jacques.

Posture

1. Sway song – students stand in play position and shift from left to right foot while a lyrical piece is played. Extension: use scarves or tissues to show the flow.
2. Rest position feet/play position feet up the notes of the scale
3. Violin Doctor – teacher creates a silly posture, parents and students give directions for how to heal the posture
4. Simon says – classic game but use “violin hand,” “bow hand,” “rest position,” “play position,” etc.

Rhythms

1. My Turn, Your Turn Tapping rhythm on knees for all Twinkle rhythms – extension: two in a row, three in a row, etc.
2. Patterning along to music – student and parent scrub, pattern, or bow along to another piece (Twinkle rhythm variations especially)
3. Mystery rhythm, which is this? Rhythm pictures, which is missing? – draw pictures of rhythms on the board (music notation or graphic strawberry=triplet), erase them as we do them, student can figure them out. Also fun to do this whispering or tapping fingers next to the students’ ear
4. Rhythm teams – conductor points to the team to play – two at once?

Singing

1. Alphabet forwards and backwards
2. Sing a piece with me, when I put a bubble in my mouth you stop singing. Sing while I play, if I stop playing you stop signing.
3. Invent words and gestures to go along with songs, have students help you come up with a few lyrics. 

Attention

1. Bell Game – link