Teach music, drama, and language arts by having your students write a Halloween song. The best teaching is when you are able to combine the curriculum.
Objective: Students to create a song from a familiar tune such as Old McDonald or Here Comes Santa Claus.
Teacher Guided Lesson
Students will form a circle for this assignment. Teacher will sit in the circle and have students brainstorm sounds of Halloween. Each student will have an opportunity to make a Halloween sound, but they are allowed to pass and provide their sound at the end. The teacher will write out the different sounds on chart paper.
Next, students will identify a Halloween character with the sound. Teacher will write the name of the character by the sound. There can be more than one character per sound. ( Boo: Ghost, Aaaaaaaaooooo: Werewolf)
Then, the students will be placed in groups of 4-6 and they will be given 2-3 characters and they must choose a sound for each character. Students will present their character and sound at the end of the activity.
Once all characters have a sound, the teacher will write all of the sounds and characters on chart paper, for students to reference.
Halloween Characters
- Werewolf
- Ghost
- Witch
- Goblin
- Headless Horseman
Halloween Song
Students and teacher will create a new version of Old McDonald with information on the chart paper about Halloween characters and sounds. Before the class, the teacher writes out the original verse of Old McDonald and rewrites it again but with several blanks in the verse. The blanks will be filled in with the class.
Original Verse of Old McDonald
Old McDonald had a farm eieio,
and on his farm he had a sheep, eieio,
with a ba ba here and a ba ba there, here a ba, there a ba, everywhere a ba ba.
Old McDonald had a farm.
All of the italicized words need to be replaced with Halloween sounds and characters.
Halloween Verse of Old McDonald
Old McSkelton had a graveyard eieio,
and at his graveyard he had a ghost, eieio,
with a boo hoo here and a boo hoo there, here a boo, there a hoo, everywhere a boo hoo.
Old McSkelton had a graveyard.
Have students sing this song as a group. After you have completed the assignment, students are ready to create their own Halloween musical score.
Student Guided Lesson
Students in groups of 3-6 create a Halloween song from a familiar song. Students are to change the lyrics to correspond with the Halloween theme. As well, students will practice the song and sing to the class. Students may give fellow classmates a copy of their song for them to sing a long.
Lesson Extensions
Give students specific words that must be used at least once in their song.
Students create a band, by singing the song and playing the music on their individual musical equipment.
Students must only use words with a minimum of two syllables.
Final Assignment
Students sing their Halloween songs to an audience outside the classroom. As well, the teacher may record the singers and watch their performance on a later date.
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