5 Fun Winter Music Activities for Elementary Students

Winter is a great time to make music lessons more fun! Try these five fun winter music activities for elementary students. These activities include rhythm games, an escape room, and even a musical snowball fight! They’ll add some extra excitement to your January lessons. These ideas will keep your students interested and learning during the winter. Get ready to make your music classroom even more engaging with these fun winter games and activities!

1. Snowman Rhythms – a Poison Rhythm Game for Winter Music Lessons

Snowman Rhythms is my winter twist on the Poison Rhythm game. If you’ve never played Poison Rhythm with your music students before, you’ve been missing out!

Poison Rhythm is a fast-paced, engaging rhythm review game that students love. It also works well as an end-of-class activity to fill those last 5 minutes. I have an entire blog post about How to Play Poison Rhythm here.

The rules are simple:

• Designate a rhythm pattern as ‘poison.’ If anyone claps the poison rhythm, they are ‘out’ (they will sit down and stop participating).
• Continue to show your students new rhythm patterns. Count them in, and have them clap each rhythm pattern (I use 4-beat patterns).
• Every few patterns, show them the poison rhythm (without telling them). If anyone forgets and claps the poison rhythm, they are ‘out’ (sit down). 
• The game ends when you run out of new rhythm cards to show them, or when there is one student left (or when you are out of time!)

You can play this game with no materials and just write patterns on the board. But, to make this a simple, no-prep activity to have in your back pocket, you can find my Snowman Rhythms winter poison game here in 4 different rhythm levels.

2. Winter Music Escape Room

Have you ever been to an escape room? Or perhaps you’ve tried one of the much more affordable print-at-home escape games you can find online? 

I bet at least one of your students has! They seem to be a popular birthday activity amongst my students.

Why not bring the fun and excitement of an escape room into your music classroom or studio? Even your most reluctant students will pull out all the stops and show you the musical skills they’ve learned in order to escape in time! Escape rooms are perfect for a hard-to-teach day (the last day before a holiday, a testing day, etc.) or to use as an end-of-month reward class to encourage good behavior.

Plus, with this print-and-go winter music escape room, I’ve done all the hard work for you. It’s for upper elementary/middle school ages – grades 4-6 – dependent on when your students have covered the topics included. It comes in 2 levels, so you can adapt it to your students’ knowledge!

3. Have a Snowball Fight!

Why not have a snowball fight? Not the real kind, of course. We’re going to use crumpled-up scrap paper instead!

A snowball fight is the perfect wintery way to review any concept your students have been learning. You could practice clapping rhythms, naming notes on the staff, solfege, or sight reading on an instrument (if you have a very small group).

For example, to have a rhythm snowball fight:

• Write a short rhythm on each scrap of paper (have more papers than the number of students in your group).
• Crumple the pieces of paper into ‘snowballs.’
• Establish rules – throw the balls in the air, not at anyone’s face, stand still while throwing, don’t run around the room, etc.
• Distribute the snowballs on the floor spread out around the room. 
• Have students stand spread out around the room.
• Each student should pick up the snowball closest to them, open it, and clap the rhythm.
• Each student can crumple the paper back up and (when you direct them to) throw the ball.
• Repeat, with each student picking the snowball closest to them, clapping the rhythm, and crumpling the paper back up as many times as you wish

4. Snowman Matching Games

Matching games are an easy addition to centers activities in lower elementary grades. Students will enjoy matching the snowmen to review note names, rhythms, symbols, or instrument families. If you’d like to include some written work, have them record some of their matches on a recording worksheet for you to mark.

For upper elementary grades, matching games can feel a bit ‘young’ on their own. But, they are a great way to choose partners. For example, distribute one-half of a matching card (half the snowman) to each student. Students should find the student with the matching card. You’ll have a new, engaging way to choose partners while also having students review the concepts on the matching cards!

5. Winter Color-by-Rhythm

Everyone loves to color!

Color-by-rhythm worksheets are perfect winter music activities to keep on hand for early finishers, substitutes, or times when you need students to work quietly with little guidance.

Do you use any of these winter music activities in your lessons?