On saturdays I run a music group for small children between the ages of two and a half and six. We sing songs, play with puppets, listen to players of other instruments etc and we use percussion instruments too. We have small hand held drums, tanbourines, castanettes, bells, chime bars, triangles etc, and we have fun playing along to our own songs and singing games. I am wondering if any one could suggest some other percussion games that we could play. We do "follow the leader" games but there must be lots of things that I haven't thought of. Any ideas would be most welcome.

I run a choir for 4 - 8 year olds, but we also have percussion instruments and sometimes we spend the whole session with them. Their favourite game is "musical conversations". To start with show them how two instruments can "talk" to each other - not one copying the other, but taking it in turns to "say" something. You can get quite a lot of expression here, by varying dynamics and lnegth of reply. Sometimes they have violent arguments! Anyway, once they understand the concept, I let them all walk around the room playing their instrument. When the whistle blows they stand still and look for the nearest person to pair up with. Then they have a "conversation" with that person. When the whistle blows again they swap instruments and carry on walking. They can walk anywhere, not just in a circle following each other. Don't know if it would work with 2 1/2 year olds, though...

Somewhere I've got a sheet with loads of percussion games on it. I'll try to dig it out sometime - if I forget, PM me. I'm going out for the day now.

Thank you. The sheet would be helpful. Has anyone else any ideas?

One of the favourites with my pre-school groups is to sit in a circle and pass around a jingle ring - like a tambourine - as quietly as we can. We have a special song for this, but easy enough to make one up. Then we pass it as noisily as we can, before finishing with quietly again.

Mine also love to use chime bars - pentatonic sounds better than all the notes! Occasionally we put them in a line in random order, then everyone takes turns to make "beautiful music".