Hot Seat Music Game: Practice Instrument Names in the Elementary Classroom

The hot seat game is a fantastic and easy way to practice instrument names in your elementary music classroom. In this game, one student sits in the “hot seat” facing away from the board. The teacher puts a picture on the board, and the rest of the students have to describe or mime the word to help the “hot seat” student guess correctly. The usual rules apply, in that the students can’t use the word or any part of it in their clues. With that in mind, I wanted to share with you my ideas for adapting it to the elementary music classroom.

Collaborative versus Competitive

My husband plays A LOT of board games, so I’m familiar with the collaborative versus competitive setup. I prefer collaborative games, in which all players work together to defeat the villain and/or gain the most points possible. In an elementary music classroom, this means that students would work together toward hitting a point goal set by the teacher. Here are the adaptations I would make for a collaborative game of hot seat in the elementary music classroom:

• Two students are in the hot seat: this prevents a single student from being blamed or bullied for “not guessing it right”.
• Give students two paths to win. For example, they win if they reach 10 points or if they name all instruments from an instrument family.
  • Teacher Tip: try to make sure students win their first game by giving them instruments they know well. Even as adults, we’re not keen to play a game again if we’ve lost spectacularly the first time around (ask me how I know). Students should end the game feeling a sense of accomplishment and fun, and at the very least, they shouldn’t dread playing the game again.

Competetive games, while not my preference, can also be fun if done well. Here are the adaptations I would make for a competetive game of hot seat:

• The class is split into two groups, with each group having two students in the “hot seat”.
  • Again, this prevents a single student from being blamed or bullied for “not guessing it right”.
• Give both teams two paths to win, resulting in the rare possibility that both teams could win.
  • The team with the most points wins and/or the team who guessed all of one instrument family correctly wins.
  • Yes, it will melt their brains a bit knowing that both teams can win, but hey, that’s life. Sometimes everybody loses, but sometimes everybody wins.

DIY Instrument Magnets

Make your own DIY instrument magnets by laminating images of instruments and adding a strip of magnetic tape to the back. Let a student choose the instrument from a grab bag and put it on the board for the hot seat game. If you’d like to learn more about DIY magnets and stickers, be sure to check out my Instagram post HERE.

Add a Twist with Instrument Riddles

Want to make the hot seat game even more challenging? Try swapping the instrument names for instrument riddles instead. This version gets everyone thinking, both the students in the hot seats and the students giving clues.

For example:

“I am an instrument with a bright, brassy sound. I have three valves, to the high notes I’m bound!“

The clue-givers read the riddle out loud and have to decide which instrument it describes. The student in the hot seat works it out too, using both the riddle and any hints their classmates add along the way.

If you’d like ready-to-go riddles for every instrument family, my Instrument Riddles resource includes 20 rhyming riddles with matching picture and title slides, perfect for the hot seat game or as a quick review activity anytime.

Check out Instrument Riddles here →