what could i have a group of 10-year-olds do in music class?

i'm substituting for a primary school teacher tomorrow and i have 3 music lessons to teach.

any ideas for activities? i'm pretty crap at sight reading so i can't really make them sing along to a piano accompaniment.

stuff they have in the classroom: drums, piano, electric bass, electric guitar, a bunch of percussion (incl. a bunch of xylophones etc), a pile of songbooks.

assume that the group is a bunch of ADHD unmusical fucksticks (not far from the truth typically)

I can't post anything that won't look lame, since I've already used up my quota of appropriate responses lately.

droning ambient

play cobra

Bring in some Wii's with Rhythm Heaven Fever in them. Seriously it will go a long way in establishing a solid sense of rhythm

Teach them how to make a 5/8 account and leave them browsing this amazing music themed forum for an hour every week.

Dying Fetus

Anal Cunt

Play recordings of different instruments and have them identify them by timbre. I did this around age 11 and I remember having a bitch of a time discerning the difference between a clarinet and an oboe

cool idea, but they probably wont even know what either of those two sound like

also there's no computer available and i cant get a CD with instrument sounds on such short notice

The 10-year-olds probably have outgrown the Wii by now.

Play John Cage's 4'33" for them and open the floor for debate over the validity of the piece being considered music.

I know you said you're not the best at sight reading music, but it shouldn't take too long to learn the composition well enough to play it for them.

fucking teaching, how does it work?

because the WIi is for babies

W-lowercase L-i

This is why I have one.

suck each other's dicks

stick to the xylophones, split them into groups of three or four and make each group play two repeating two bar lines (e.g. if the groups are of 4, 2 people in the group play one line in unison and the other 2 people play the other line).

Make the lines really simple obviously, and two repeating bars is probably enough. You could have one of the lines just playing root on the first bar (C-C-C-C, quarter notes) and five on the second bar (G-G-G-G). And the other line could be a basic major melody around the first-second-third in the first bar and fifth-sixth-seventh in the second bar

oh right, sorry I had forgotten

such a joe response

It really is, but have you ever played a Rhythm Heaven game? Those fuckers demand very precise timing, on the level of Rock Band games or Harmonix-developed Guitar Hero games, possibly even more precision than those. They're presented in such awesome funny and crazy scenarios that it would make it fun for the kids! And Rhythm Heaven Fever has two player co-op, so the kids will learn solid rhythm together!

!!!!!!

Around these parts if you are substituting a class, the regular teacher is supposed to have a lesson plan ready for you to follow. What the fuck?

We actually get fined if the sub doesn't receive plans.

Have them write hate mail to Nintendo.

But more to the point, this is a great book of activities, though my copy is at my school:
http://www.amazon.com/Feel-It-Robert-M-Abramson/dp/0769266401
Worth it to get if you're going to work with kids more in this kind of situation.
If you click on the "Search Inside" you can grab a couple of pages worth of activities that might get you through.

YOU CAN'T ARGUE WITH THIS

I am also fond of Samba di Amigo.

make them get naked and sing yankey doodle went to town

Joe he is not bringing Wiis into the fucking class.

plays pc games.

I can't think of anything I've played more than once except CSS on occassion, and when Skyrim first came out.

1700 tf2 hours, u mad?

Ya I hit skyrim hard when it came out, and I've had CSS for like...4-5 years, and might play maybe 10-15 minutes a night maybe longer if I have absolutely nothing better to do.

chronomad

lol

sort of did this

also sort of played piano and let them sing songs (i suck so fucking bad at sight reading thho LOL)

sort of did this as well

Have fun, keep fit and meet new people by teaching them this exciting new urban dance phenomenon.

The intro reminds me of Tool's Eulogy.
Can.not.unhear.

we have real instruments BUT BRING THEM FUCKING VIDEO GAMES

yeah great idea

For ten-year-old fuckscoffs, some of them not even interested in music, with little to no affinity with music, it's actually a brilliant idea.
Maybe work some actual instruments in there as played by someone who actually knows his/her shit, see if they're interested, and go from there.