Halloween is just around the corner! And truth be told, I have been spending most of my focused time choosing Christmas music for my students and coming up with our studio Christmas project for this year. This is why I have an “October” binder that allows me to grab my stash off the shelf and use the Halloween activities inside with little to no prep work!

Halloween is not my personal favorite holiday, but I will NEVER give up the opportunity to bring something different and exciting to lessons. Sometimes this means the activities I have stored are exactly what a student is learning that week. But often it becomes a fun way to review old concepts that are at the core of music understanding.

Do you have monthly binders to make lesson planning easier? This week I’m offering three printables that you can use to start creating your “October” binder. All three have skills that your students will need to know whatever their level.

 I have been doing some major overhaul to my curriculum with the extra time during shut-down this year, and one of the concepts I have been padding my lessons with is note printing. Sometimes this is composition, other times a simple worksheet, and some days it’s copy work for a song they will then learn to play. This week? My students will be using skittles for their note printing, and they probably won’t even notice that my goal is far from eating candy to celebrate the holiday 😉 Game based learning creates a unique learning experience where the student gets to practice the concept over and over without getting bored. They simply want to win! Enjoy racing pumpkins with your students and watch their note reading skills flourish 🙂

Happy Halloween,