Fun Memorization Technique for Children’s Choir

My 8:30 am homeschool choir always starts out a little slow. The kids are still tired; many of them rush to get to class on time, and some of the youngest members fall asleep on the ride to the studio. On top of all those things, it’s been very cold lately. So to start the day out right and energize a group of sleepyheads, we usually do laps around the chairs. Two days ago when I arrived at class, the room was divided up differently, and it just wasn’t practical to line up 15-20 chairs and run laps around them. There were too many things in the way, and I was afraid the children would trip and fall. So my son helped me put several chairs back-to-back in a smaller area of the room. It reminded me of the set-up for musical chairs, and I asked him if he had ever played. He hadn’t. The class arrived, and we ran small circles around the chairs. Later we started to sing one of our new songs that we are studying for a musical in May. I wanted them to march while singing to drive home the beat a little, and it dawned on everyone that the chairs were arranged for musical chairs. We decided to do the obvious thing, and play the game while learning the new song! It was so much fun! There was plenty of repetition since we sang the song over and over, but the children stayed interested and energized. Before the end of the game, most of the children had put their lyrics down and were singing from memory. They were laughing too, of course, but they were still learning!