by Kristin Pugliese
Halloween is just around the corner ~ crazy, right??? Here is a fun activity to do with your first and/ or second graders that will bring out the ghosts and ghouls! It doesn’t take a whole lot of time and the kids get super excited about creating a Halloween themed composition. The process is simplified for your younger learners, so you can finish it within one class period or finish each step over multiple classes. It is completely up to you!
The best part of this lesson? It can get as silly or as spooky as you would like!!
Here are the steps:
- Brainstorm words that are popular for Halloween ~ words like witch, pumpkin, scary, etc…
- I then created 3 categories: ONE: red/ quarter note category | TWO: yellow/ 2 eighth notes category | THREE: yellow/ 2 eighth notes and a red/quarter note
- We went through each word and put it into one of the 3 categories. Words with one syllable went into the red/ quarter note category, words with 2 syllables went into the yellow/ 2 eighth notes category and the 3 syllable words went into the last category. (In first grade, we only used words with 1 or 2 syllables)
- We pulled out our 4/4 time signature frame and created a simple composition. It didn’t need to be a sentence, as it was for fun …and meant to get kids thinking about how usually each syllable in a word receives its own note. Kids chose a word from a category and put the corresponding Note Knack in the frame.
- I then sent them off into groups to create their own composition!
- I used our new Note Knacks Cards to decrease the number of kids in a group! My full classroom set is on it’s way so that each kid can have their own set!! …and I can’t wait!