Magical Halloween Music Lessons for Grades K-6

When it comes to Halloween music lessons, I have two very distinct memories. My first is of my cooperating teacher from my student teaching days. She was an incredible mentor, but boy she did not like Halloween. She never let it slip in front of the students, but behind closed doors, she said, “I hate teaching on Halloween,” in a very hushed voice.

This blog post isn’t meant to hate on my cooperating teacher! She’s really wonderful! This memory just sticks out in my mind because I heard many music teachers repeat the same sentiment. It made one thing clear—a holiday that was meant to be good-natured and fun was actually quite stressful for music teachers.

I’m not immune to Halloween teaching stress either. You’ll read a story later on in this post about a student who inspired one of the Halloween music lessons I’m sharing here. I think teaching music can feel especially challenging on Halloween because you’re fighting many distractions and disruptions all day. You’re dealing with students in costume, often hyped up or crashing from sugar consumption. You might have schedule changes due to Halloween parades and classroom parties.

With all these changes and disruptions, I can understand why many music teachers dismiss Halloween as a teachable day. And if you’re a burnt-out music teacher who just wants to throw on Coco and call it a day, let me offer a better way. I’d like to tell you about some music lessons that truly bring the Halloween magic.

Halloween Music Lesson for Grades K-2

So I mentioned I wasn’t immune to the feeling of Halloween stress, right? Let me start this by sharing that this resource was inspired by an interesting kindergartener that I taught in 2018. It was Halloween day, and my principal had rearranged all of the Specials schedules around the school Halloween parade and homeroom Halloween parties.

I knew it would be rough teaching kindergarten music right after their Halloween party. I don’t remember much about what I taught, but I remember that one little girl started screaming at the top of her lungs. She was crying because she wanted to go home. And no matter what I did to try to console her, nothing worked. She was hysterical. I must have called the office at least five or six times, but no one ever answered or came to help. I tried everything I could, but she screamed the entire forty-minute class period until her teacher returned to pick her up.

It was funny because, after trying to help her many times, I decided to attempt to teach anyway. The other students (surprisingly) tried their best to participate despite the nonstop shrieking from the child.

I’m thinking scheduling may have resulted in that meltdown, but I often think back to that child and wonder if my lesson would have been better if she had calmed down and joined us. I just wonder: if I had a more interesting lesson, would she have calmed down?

These are the teaching questions that keep me awake at night. And, while I’ll never know the true answer, I’m happy to share that this child inspired me on my quest to create the most engaging Halloween music lesson for grades K-2 that I possibly could. Here was the result ⬇️

“Ghost In My Kitchen” – A Rhyming Chant to Teach Ta and Ti-Ti Rhythms

When I was developing my K-2 Halloween music lesson, I wanted to create something engaging that would target concepts we’re all covering in elementary music. I was playing around with some words and realized that the word “ghost” rhymed with “French toast”. The next thing I knew, I had written an adorable rhyming story about a ghost sneaking around someone’s kitchen to make French toast at night!

The rhyme is as follows:

I didn’t stop there; I wanted to bring my K-2 students into the story. So I created a character. His name is Binky. Binky the ghost.

In the fully animated Google Slides lesson, Binky engages your students right away by introducing himself and sharing how he’s a ghost, and the word ghost makes one sound. This is compared to the quarter note, which also makes one sound. From there, Binky also shares that his name makes 2 sounds using syllables. Binky then leads students through a quick four-bar chant: “Binky in the Kitchen” (♫♫♩♩). From there, Binky informs the students that he’s hungry and shares his grocery list with the students.

This leads to the main part of the lesson! Each rhythm and line of the poem is fully programmed to animate on the screen as you click, so you can cue each rhythm when your students are ready to clap.

Binky reveals his French toast to the students after the rhythm activity, but the fun doesn’t stop there! The rhythms are repeated once again using the Kodály counting method (Ta and Ti-Ti). This is usually the part of the lesson where I’d pass out classroom instruments if you’re going to use them, but that’s completely optional and up to you.

This first portion of the lesson should run approximately 15-20 minutes, depending on your pacing. At this point, you are given an opportunity to break or exit the lesson (if needed). This is intentional and helpful if you need an “out” to throw in a brain break or head to a Halloween parade.

If you decide to keep teaching, the next portion of the lesson will add an additional 15-20 minutes (depending on your pacing). This next portion is really fun and encourages creativity as students are prompted to compose the next verse of the story. This time, they’re composing a poem about what Binky cooks for lunch through a Mad Lib style activity. The kindergarten version of this activity is teacher-led to minimize writing, but the students will still contribute the responses, which are dragged to the composition using edit mode in Google Slides.

Don’t worry—this isn’t as challenging as it sounds, and I’ve included a full guide on how to run each stage of the lesson, so you’re never confused.

For grades 1 and 2, you’ll divide students into groups of three (or four) and have students compose the entire verse themselves, using their own words. There’s a ten-minute timer included for this activity for pacing, but you can time this activity however you like.

If students get stuck or confused, I’ll usually tell them to think of food words or ingredients that have 1 or 2 sounds. For example, “corn” makes 1 sound like “ta”. “Carrot” makes 2 sounds like Ti-Ti. I’ll encourage each group to come up with as many food words that make 1 or 2 sounds, and write their story from there. You’ll need to monitor students as they work, but most students pick up the idea quickly. If they don’t, have them clap it and refine their work.

The compositions can culminate in a performance at the end of class, or even be collected (and reviewed) as an assessment by you! What exactly can you assess? This lesson is a perfect way to check if students can generate and organize musical ideas (Anchor Standards 1-2: National Arts Standards).

Quick Details About This Halloween Music Lesson

Grades:

Kindergarten – 2nd

Length of Music Lesson:

Part 1: 15-20 minutes (excludes the lesson extension)
Part 2: Additional 15-20 minutes
TOTAL LENGTH: 30-40 minutes when taught in full.

National Core Arts Standards:

Targets anchor standards #1-6 when the lesson is taught in full.

MU:Pr4.2.K.a
MU:Cr1.1.K.a/b
MU:Cr2.1.K.a/b
MU:Pr4.2.1.a
MU:Pr4.2.1.b
MU:Pr4.2.2.b
MU:Cr1.1.2.a/b

Learning Objective:

Students will accurately read and perform Ta/Ti-Ti patterns and keep a steady beat from standard notation.

What’s Included In The Lesson?

✅ Printable Lesson Plans (aligned with the National Core Arts Anchor Standards #1-6)

✅ Main Google Slides Lesson (fully animated and ready to teach!)

✅ Teaching Guide

✅ Supplemental Composition Activities (printable)

✅ Supplemental Student Rhythm Sheets (printable)

✅ “Ghost In My Kitchen” Standard Notation Sheet (printable)

Look, I get it. Halloween feels like a day to survive, not teach.

But what if you walked in with a lesson so engaging that your sugar-crashed, costume-wearing students were actually learning?

That’s why I created “Ghost In My Kitchen.” It’s fully prepped, standards-aligned, and actually keeps kids engaged. No scrambling. No stress. Just click through the slides and teach.

I refuse to let Halloween be a throwaway day—and you don’t have to do that either.

Grab the “Ghost In My Kitchen” resource and reclaim Halloween as a real teaching day with K-2!

Halloween Music Lesson for Grades 3-6

Rondo Form with “Fossiles” from Carnival of the Animals

My upper elementary Halloween music lesson focuses exclusively on Anchor Standard #7 but it’s packed with comprehensive learning activities that will keep your older students completely engaged.

This Halloween music lesson has a skeleton and fossil theme and features the piece Fossiles (The English spelling “Fossils” will be referenced in this article), from Carnival of the Animals, as an active listening activity. You’ll need to provide some blank paper and pencils to students during this listening activity, but the Google Slides lesson and teaching guide will ensure a productive listening experience for your students.

After this brief listening activity (less than 2 minutes long), students are introduced to Rondo form, which helps explain some of the patterns students generally observe during the first listen. Students learn that Rondo form is structured into a main theme with sections (ABACA).

Students get to listen to Fossils again, but this time they’ll be up and moving. Before they listen, they’ll need to assign a movement to each section. Movements can be simple, like jumping or swaying. Additionally, suggestions are provided in case students get stuck. Then students are up, moving to Fossils by Camille Saint-Saëns!

Most students will feel more confident in Rondo form at this point, so the next portion of this Halloween music lesson divides the class into three distinct fossil teams:

Team Triceratops
Team Fish Bone
Team Seashell

I suggest planning out these three teams before the lesson, but if you trust your students to make good choices, you can let them pick their own groups. Once the students are in groups, they’ll be tasked with composing or improvising a four-bar rhythm using whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, barred eighth notes, and quarter rests. I would give each team about 2-5 minutes to create their rhythmic motif before continuing.

Next, the teams each perform their rhythmic motif for the class in a Rondo relay!

What’s a Rondo relay? I’m glad you asked!

Each of the three teams is programmed into the lesson to represent a distinct section of the Rondo. The students won’t realize this yet, but they’ll be prompted to reflect on it afterwards. Running the Rondo relay is as simple as running the beat track and clicking to cue the entrances for each team!

After this activity, students should be able to distinguish that Team Triceratops retained the A section (main idea) during the Rondo relay while teams Fish Bone and Seashell represent the B and C sections, respectively. This might feel “unfair” at first to some kids since Team Triceratops will inevitably get to perform their idea more frequently during the Rondo relay. If this happens, you can explain how the structuring of the activity helps students recognize Rondo form in action. In other words, the activity was designed for applied learning.

The last part of the lesson is the best part! Students return to their fossil teams again to compose a full Rondo inspired by their fossil! You can have students get really creative with this activity and utilize musical instruments (or body percussion) that inspire them. Ideally, each team should be creating 3 unique rhythm motifs and structuring them into a Rondo performance (ABACA style). Each team will have ten minutes to work on their final Rondo, which should allow enough time to compose and practice their idea.

The lesson concludes with each team presenting their final composition in a class Rondo performance! Printable and digital lesson exit tickets are also included so you can assess individual understanding at the end of the lesson!