We are inching steadily closer to Halloween and at our school, it's a big deal! We have the annual Halloween Parade with the entire school around the track outside followed by the entire school dancing the Monster Mash. Our science department plans a creative Halloween Spectacular for all of middle school and students rotate into the lab to watch amazing scientific feats - one year a pumpkin exploded! They LOVE it!
HALLOWEEN SOUND STORY
One of my favorite lessons with students is to create a Halloween sound story using percussion instruments and vocal sounds. There are several stories that work well for creating a sound story. Use a short Halloween poem or story about a piece of information. One of my favorite Halloween stories, that is not scary and involves trick-or-treating, is called On Halloween. Here is a link to the Google Slides presentation that I created. There are 10 instrument parts and 1 narrator. You might consider doubling the parts and having two narrators. Or you could have half the class listen to the story while the other half of the class performs the story with the instruments and then switch roles.
I recommend reading the story to the students the first time. Then reading it in the next class while students fill in the vocal sounds (boos and other dramatic portions). You could have some students perform the parts of the tiny pirate who wins the funniest costume, being a part of the parade, boys as cowboys riding galloping ponies and so on. Then add the instruments. And finally allow students to narrate and put the entire piece together. This could be easily be taught over several class periods.
On Halloween Sound Story
A few other pieces that work well for creating sound stories:
Poem: There once was a witch
Poem: Halloween Night when the Witches Run
12 BAR BLUES
A fun resource for using I/IV/V chords in a 12-bar blues form is the song "Boogie Woogie Ghost." I learned this song from Rob Koch when I was his student teacher in MI. He'd play the guitar and the students would sing. It could be used as part of a 12-bar blues unit while allowing for student-created movement to the form of the song.
HALLOWEEN CANON
I love canons! This speech canon is great for presenting or practicing tika-ti rhythms. Crescendo throughout the poem beginning with pianissimo and building up to forte.
Since I have students for a trimester, our first trimester Music Sharing is two days after Halloween this year. Students are only two weeks away from this event and we are in the midst of solidifying everything for the sharing while balancing the continuation of learning new musical concepts. To make it engaging, here are a few ideas I am trying out with students over the next two weeks.
SINGING BOOK TEXTS
I originally looked for the book recommended by Lindsay Jervis here: The Halloween House. Instead I found the book "At the Old Haunted House" written by Helen Ketteman. Both texts work well with the melody of "Over in the Meadow." I altered the melody to sing in a minor key/mode for a more Halloweenish effect. For the end of the book, I created a melody because the text doesn't fit the song.
Students of all ages love to hear books read and sung. This is something I very rarely do and it's a nice change of pace. Definitely something I need to do more of with my middle school students!
Here is a link to the melody:
At the Old Haunted House Melody
Here is a link to the melody:
At the Old Haunted House Melody
HALLOWEEN SOUND STORY
One of my favorite lessons with students is to create a Halloween sound story using percussion instruments and vocal sounds. There are several stories that work well for creating a sound story. Use a short Halloween poem or story about a piece of information. One of my favorite Halloween stories, that is not scary and involves trick-or-treating, is called On Halloween. Here is a link to the Google Slides presentation that I created. There are 10 instrument parts and 1 narrator. You might consider doubling the parts and having two narrators. Or you could have half the class listen to the story while the other half of the class performs the story with the instruments and then switch roles.
I recommend reading the story to the students the first time. Then reading it in the next class while students fill in the vocal sounds (boos and other dramatic portions). You could have some students perform the parts of the tiny pirate who wins the funniest costume, being a part of the parade, boys as cowboys riding galloping ponies and so on. Then add the instruments. And finally allow students to narrate and put the entire piece together. This could be easily be taught over several class periods.
On Halloween Sound Story
A few other pieces that work well for creating sound stories:
Poem: There once was a witch
Poem: Halloween Night when the Witches Run
12 BAR BLUES
A fun resource for using I/IV/V chords in a 12-bar blues form is the song "Boogie Woogie Ghost." I learned this song from Rob Koch when I was his student teacher in MI. He'd play the guitar and the students would sing. It could be used as part of a 12-bar blues unit while allowing for student-created movement to the form of the song.
HALLOWEEN CANON
I love canons! This speech canon is great for presenting or practicing tika-ti rhythms. Crescendo throughout the poem beginning with pianissimo and building up to forte.
FLIGHT OF THE WITCHES
This is a movement piece for very young students to move to. I used this on the week of Halloween with my Kindergarten students every year. Here is the link to my Google Doc with the lyrics and movement details: Flight of the Witches. The students groups would be in this formation and rotate through each character by moving clockwise from one part to the next.
Comments
Post a Comment