Hello Jello with Instruments (Drums and Recorders)

Hello Jello is a great game played with the downloadable Blue Jello Word Cards.  The directions are on the game ideas card that comes with the deck.  I often do this game with all my classes at the beginning of the year since it is great for remembering and learning names.  It also gives me a chance to see how much blue jello the students have retained over the summer. 

This year my 6th graders are starting off with a unit in World Music Drumming.  The start of this curriculum deals with basic technique on the tubano drums and then a lot of Teacher/Student echo exercises. With each student sitting at a drum in a circle, I put out a few Blue Jello World Cards to choose from to play Hello Jello (usually Blue, Jello, and Rest to start).  We went around the circle and played Hello Jello as usual - each student says their name in one beat and one of the showing Blue Jello Word Cards in the second beat, which everyone then echos. After everyone had a turn playing Hello Jello with only voices, we went around once more, only this time students were to speak and drum the rhythm of their name and Blue Jello Word Card, followed by the echo of the class.  Example:  "Ma-ry Blue" - class echos "Ma-ry Blue" "Lau-ra Jel-lo" echo "Lau-ra Jel-lo"....and so on.  This turned out to be a great exercise in steady beat, and high open tone drumming technique.  Also, because everyone had a solo first it was very easy for me to assess their hand positions and performance skill on the drums. The kids loved it and want to play each class with more choices.  

I also tried this with my beginning recorder class.  We had Blue Jello Word Cards out for choices and each student said their name followed by one of the cards (Jello, Blue, Pineapple, Rest etc. - only choices I knew they could play successfully) then each child played the rhythm of the name and the blue jello word card chosen.  They LOVED IT!!!!! We chose the pitch ahead of time - A.  Next I will try and add two pitches (A and C or Sol and Mi) for singing and ear training.  Their favorite part was actually when a student chose "rest" for their beat we played the name followed by a beat of silence.  This was new since we've been whispering "rest" up until now.  They LOVED the beat of silence...and we had some giggles when some forgot and played.  All in fun.

Try it out and let me know how it goes!  You'll know all your 100's of students names before you know it :)