Simple Halloween Compositions

Halloween is just around the corner—crazy, right?! 🎃

Here’s a fun Halloween activity to try with your first and/or second graders that is sure to bring out the ghosts and ghouls! It doesn’t take a lot of prep time, and the kids will get super excited about creating their very own Halloween-themed composition.

The process is simplified for younger learners, so you can complete the entire activity in one class period or spread the steps out over several classes. It’s completely up to you!

And the best part? You can make this lesson as silly or as spooky as you’d 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 got to work creating a little Halloween-themed composition! 🎃👻

It didn’t have to be a sentence—we were just having fun and getting kids thinking about how each syllable in a word can receive its own note. Kids chose a word from a Halloween-themed category and then placed the corresponding Note Knack in the frame to build their spooky little composition.

I then sent them off into groups to create their own composition!
The result? A whole lot of creativity and some very silly combinations!

(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!)

Above, you’ll see that the eighth notes are written separately. I like to start this way because it clearly shows students that barred eighth notes are still two separate notes. The rhythm stays the same, but this approach reinforces an important concept: one note head = one sound. Once students are ready to write their final draft, they can bar the eighth notes together.