Music Workstations:  Snowball Scoop

For this workstation I used:

-some plastic spoons (plus extra because sometimes kids do weird things like put them in their mouth or scratch their head with them and that weirds out other kids...and well...just have some extras.)

-lots of ping pong or other small white plastic balls (You could use a variety of sizes if you wanted.).

-4 containers marked 1, 2, 3 and 4.  I used some little tubs, but I think that small buckets with shovels (instead of spoons) would be fun for this activity.

With a permanent marker, draw notes on each ping pong ball.  I did some single notes and then I did some rhythm patterns so that students would have to add them up to place them in the correct bin.  As I created these I placed the balls in the bin so that I would have a fairly even amount in each one.  To do this I had to duplicate the smaller values which is fine.

I know.  I know.  At this point, you've figured out everything but the gloves, right?  They are there to "highly motivate" students.  Yep.  They are the novelty.  The "Weird" that kids love.  I tell kids that it makes it a little trickier to scoop the snowballs (which I'm pretty sure is not the truth) and that they help them get into the spirit of the activity.

After you have the balls labelled, dump them into the cooler and mix them up a bit.  This makes a delightful sound!

Place the gloves, spoons, bins and the directions near the cooler and your workstation is ready to go.  For some classes that need a reference sheet of note values I include THIS one by Sara Bibee.

There are many variations of Snowball Scoop that would be valuable.  I think I may make a set for instrument families and have students sort instrument names into their appropriate family bin.  This would also work for pitches but those might be a bit trickier to draw on the ping pong balls.

I hope you enjoy this activity with your students!  Be sure to check out my other ideas for centers or workstations in other blog posts.  Music Centers