Halloween Class

Edvard Grieg - Composer

There are tons of great songs for music classes at Halloween. You may have heard your students singing - "Pumpkin, pumpkin round and fat. Turned into a jock-o-lantern just like that!" We learned a fun game last week with that song.

This week we worked on rewriting rhyming lyrics to "Monster Stew". 

Monster stew. Monster stew.

What do you think a monster would chew?

Bat and a rat and a worn out tennis shoe.

That's what you put in monster stew!

One of my favorite rewrites from yesterday came from the 3rd grade class (pretty sure it was them!)

Monster stew. Monster stew.

What do you think a monster would chew?

Bones and clones and a ghost that says "Boo!"

That's what you put in monster stew! 

We also had a listening exercise with one of my favorite Halloween type songs. The students met composer Edvard Grieg (click here to meet him!). Grieg wrote the music for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt which was written as a Norwegian fairy tale. "In The Hall of the Mountain King" is from the part of the play where Peer is dreaming and meets a troll king. 

We practiced our listening and observation skills with our first listening of the song. Then, we learned how to read a listening map. We talked about what a theme is and recognized how often the theme was played in the song. Students demonstrated by raising their hand when they heard the theme start over. You can see the listening map here.

This song is always exciting and popular. I had one Kindergarten student last year that constantly asked if we could listen to the "Troll Song". So if your student feels the same way - you can find the one we listened to in class here. Or if you want to mix it up a bit -- there is a dupstep version here! You can also watch a Lego orchestra playing it here.

Hope all your little ghosts and goblins have a safe and happy Halloween!