Drum Says Go

A movement game led by a drum: the child’s body must follow the beat — fast, slow, or stopped — and later do the exact opposite.

  1. Take a drum (an upturned pot and a wooden spoon are perfect). The child stands ready to move.
  2. Teach the code: fast drumming = walk fast, slow drumming = walk slowly, drum stops = freeze.
  3. Play for a minute or two, changing the tempo unpredictably and holding some silences for several seconds.
  4. Add actions for the beat: clap to the drum, stomp to the drum, or hop on each beat — still freezing in the silences.
  5. Now flip the code: fast drumming = slow motion, slow drumming = fast.
  6. Hand over the drum — the child plays and the adult follows.

Variation: use two different sounds — a drum beat means stomp, a pan-lid “ting” means tiptoe — and then swap their meanings.

Requirements

  • Space: A clear area about 3 × 3 meters, or a garden
  • Surface: Any flat, non-slippery floor
  • Materials: A drum, or a pot or box and a wooden spoon
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 or more children
  • Supervision: Full — the adult drums first, then follows

Rationale & Objective

“Drum Beats” is one of the circle-time games in the Red Light, Purple Light intervention, in which children match movements to drum cues and then respond to opposite cues; the programme improved self-regulation in children who started low (Tominey & McClelland, 2011) and in Head Start children (Schmitt et al., 2015). Without words to rely on, the child has to listen continuously and adjust or stop the body the instant the sound changes. The flipped round is the real inhibitory workout: a fast beat naturally pulls the body into fast movement, and the child must suppress that pull. Music-and-movement activities of this kind have been linked with better self-regulation in preschoolers (Winsler et al., 2011), and the stop-on-silence element practises the everyday skill of stopping an action on a signal.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: moves at one speed whatever the drum does; keeps going for several steps after the drum stops
  • Developing: matches fast and slow with a delay; freezes within a step or two; loses the flipped rule after a few changes
  • Proficient: changes speed with the beat and freezes at once; follows the flipped rule for most changes, with occasional slips on sudden switches
  • Advanced: follows flipped and two-sound codes through rapid changes; holds long silences without moving; as the drummer, deliberately tries to trick the adult

Safety Notes

  • Clear the floor of toys and rugs that slide — sudden speed changes and freezes are when slips happen
  • With several children, have everyone travel in the same direction around the room
  • Keep the drum volume moderate; some children are sensitive to loud or sudden sounds — use a softer “drum” such as a cushion or cardboard box, and let them try drumming first
  • Fast rounds are exciting; finish with a slow, quiet round so the child ends calm rather than wound up

Hints

  • Playfulness: tell a story with the drum — giants stomping slowly, mice scurrying quickly, everyone freezing when the cat walks by
  • Sustain interest: change the instrument (shaker, pan lid, clapping, a song you pause) and the movement (crawl, march, dance, swim on the carpet)
  • Common mistake: predictable patterns and very short silences. Hold a silence long enough for the child to really feel the urge to move — that is where the practice is
  • Limited space: play seated — the child taps their knees fast or slowly, or “walks” two fingers across the table to the beat
  • Cross-domain: keeping a steady beat supports rhythm and musical development; count the beats in a pattern and stomp that many times (numeracy); name the tempo with words like fast, slower, slowest (vocabulary)
  • Progression: fast, slow, and stop → add actions on the beat → flipped speeds → two sounds with two meanings → swap the meanings → child drums

Sources

  • Tominey & McClelland (2011). Red Light, Purple Light — findings from a randomized trial using circle time games to improve behavioral self-regulation in preschool. Early Education and Development, 22(3)
  • Schmitt, McClelland, Tominey & Acock (2015). Strengthening school readiness for Head Start children — evaluation of a self-regulation intervention. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 30
  • McClelland & Tominey (2016). Stop, Think, Act — Integrating Self-Regulation in the Early Childhood Classroom. Routledge
  • Winsler, Ducenne & Koury (2011). Singing one’s way to self-regulation — the role of early music and movement curricula and private speech. Early Education and Development, 22(2)
  • Diamond, A. (2013). Executive Functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135–168