Tennis balls are bouncing their way into music class!

Music teachers keep your eye on the ball! Here are 4 GRAND-SLAM ideas for using tennis balls in the elementary music classroom!

1. Beat-Keeping

With your littlest musicians, there are never enough ways to enforce keeping a steady beat! Here are some ways you can achieve this with tennis balls!

• Students bounce the ball on the beat.
• Students tap the ball on the beat.
• Students toss the ball on the beat/at the beginning of each phrase.
• Students combine bouncing, catching, and tossing on the beat.

2. Movement

As music teachers, we know that movement is a critical aspect of learning music. Here are some FUN ways to use tennis balls in movement activities!

• Students balance, roll, or bounce the ball in pathways (straight, curvy, etc.)
• Students bounce the balls slowly or quickly.
• Students pretend the balls are heavy or light.

3. Crossing the Midline

Crossing the midline (reaching across the center of one’s body) is an important developmental activity that has benefits beyond the music classroom, especially related to reading and writing. Here is a musical activity that incorporates this practice!

• Have the balls be the earth while the students are the sun. Have students start by holding the ball straight out in front of their bodies and see if they can have the ball move exactly once around the sun within the duration of the song. Have them start and end at different places (their front, side, back) each time you sing the song.

*Tip- Connect to Science, how long does it take the earth to orbit the sun?!

4. Imaginative Play

What is more powerful in the music classroom than using one’s imagination! Here is one of so many ways that tennis balls can be used in imaginative play!

• Have the tennis balls be bunnies! Use the old tune “hop little bunnies” and have your students take care of the bunnies by rocking them during the sleeping section and bouncing them during the hopping section.

*Tip: The tennis balls will bounce away at some point. To avoid this, have your students sit butterfly style and bounce the ball within these boundaries.