Lit Lesson: A Ghost Story

Halloween is around the corner, and that means it’s time to make some spooky music! This lesson provides an easy way to tie music to a book, and because the activity is so general you can shape it in several ways to fit in with what you are already learning.

One of my favorite Halloween lessons uses A Ghost Story by Bill Martin Jr with pictures by Eric Carle. Here is the book on Amazon. If you prefer to use Dark Dark Room, that is here. Since it doesn’t exclusively list Halloween, most of my students who don’t celebrate holidays also feel comfortable participating. I usually have something ready for them to do just in case, though.

The book is similar to the common story I remember reading as a kid, “A Dark Dark Room.” It is very formulaic: In a dark dark (noun) there was a dark dark (noun), and in that dark dark (noun) there was a dark dark (noun), so on and so forth. We eventually discover a ghost, who eventually discovers your pocket, and then… HE’S GOT YOU!

This book has so many possibilities! You can compare and contrast major and minor, talk about mood, focus on chords, focus on dynamics and crescendo in particular, really the options are endless.

For the older groups, we play an A minor chord on “dark dark” on tone bars. I allow them to choose what to play when, as long as it is A, C, or E. Students can choose to play the same thing each time, or change it up each time. (Yay for self-differentiation!) With the younger kids I dictate what they play, usually octave As or AC.

Once the kids have the basics down, we decide what we can do to make the book even spookier. My school uses thinking maps, so we use a bubble map at this point to brainstorm. Common choices the kids make include using chimes for the ghost, adding in my bigger drums later in the story, and adding a rainstorm with rain sticks and a thunder tube. I also like to have a few kids play Bb to add dissonance to the A minor chord.

Recording is a must for this book, students love hearing themselves play! I use a cheap plug-in microphone (similar one here) and audacity (free and awesome program, available here) to record class performances. We choose which take we like the best, and send it to their classroom teachers.

I hope you and your students have a blast with this ghost story!

Reasons the Dollar Tree is My Friend (Part 1)

Dollar store loot!

I bet you just hate the dollar store, don’t you?

Nope, me neither.

There is a Dollar Tree right across the street from my school. In fact, it is on my way home. Every day as I drive by it, I have to make a conscious decision NOT to go to the dollar store. Needless to say, I go to the dollar store A LOT. It is a treasure trove for things that I can use in my classroom!



Pool Noodles

Why are pool noodles awesome? Simple: Steady Beat Light Sabers. They are very similar to the steady beat swords featured here. For mine, I decided to go all out and use silver duct tape and electrical tape to make them look like they came from a galaxy far, far away. I use my Light Sabers to teach steady beat to 1^st graders. 3^rd-5^th graders use them as giant batons. Holding something so long in their hands helps them to use their wrists and not conduct like a crazy person.

Foam

The Dollar tree has rolls of foam! Rolls of it! They also have packets of foam. Similar packets or rolls of foam at Wal-Mart cost $5, and who knows what craft stores would charge. Why foam? Why, dear reader, because die-cut machines can cut foam. The foam is more durable than paper, and doesn’t require lamination! I went the paper-laminate-cut route for large quantities of small manipulatives once, and NEVER AGAIN. I learned my lesson! Using foam is so much easier. Students use these shapes to identify the form they hear, or create their own form.

Clinging Shelf Liner

I love this stuff more than I can tell you. A few years ago, my room made me wince with an ugly scarred table, ugly scratched brown file cabinets, and ugly large bright yellow storage boxes. Now those babies are covered, washi taped, and looking good! I used the same kind throughout the room to make it look unified.




Wash-tape

Speaking of washi tape, I found some at the dollar store. This is incredibly exciting to me, since most other places are trying to sell them for $3 a pop. The texture is a bit different, but it still comes off with no residue. Count me in! I’m using washi tape to organize my orffatorium. Each instrument has tape, and the matching mallets have the same kind of tape. Using different colors and patterns also allows me to put kids in groups more interesting than woods and metals.

Stay tuned for another post on awesome things from the dollar store and how I use them!

BONUS: I love these matched cards from the dollar store so much, I wrote an entire post about them.