Wednesday 31 October 2012

Trick or Treat Rhythm Game!

I have been playing a Trick or Treat rhythm game with my grade 1 and 2 students this week! We sing a song about trick or treating that I am actually not sure who wrote. The words are:

Up, down, up and down the streets.
That's where I go for my trick and treats.
Scaring all the ghosts... oooooooooh!
Scaring all the cats... meow!
Scaring all the witches in their big black cats!

If you know this song and you know where it is from, please share! I have also played this game with grade 3 students and we sing Boogie Woogie Goblin by Alice Oleson (a great song for reinforcing 
ti-ka-ti-ka).

Any Halloween song works for this game, especially songs about Trick or Treating. Students sit in a circle around a bucket or cauldron. Inside the cauldron are candy cutouts with a rhythm on the back of the picture. I give one student a wooden spoon to begin. While everyone is singing the song, the person with the spoon, walks around the circle GENTLY tapping everyone's back to the beat of the song. When the song stops, the student with the spoon on their back must take a candy from the cauldron and clap the rhythm. That student then holds up the rhythm for the whole class to clap together. The student who chose the candy now has a turn to walk around the circle keeping the beat of the song with their spoon. 

I had lame construction paper silouettes for my candy this year! Booooo to me (not the scary boo, but the "I suck" boo)! So because this activity is still on my mind and I don't want cheepo looking candy next year, I decided to create better candy cutouts right now! Click here for pdf of my new and improved candy cutouts. CANDY CUTOUTS I will print my candy on card stock and write 4 beat rhythm patterns on the back of the candy before I send them away for laminating. They will be all 
ready for next year!





What did you do for Halloween or Fall activities?

- Steph

3 comments:

  1. I like to do Skin and Bones with my 5th graders as a review of SR-BAGE. I also used the poem Bubble Gum as an improvisation activity using BAGED. It's not really Halloween related but it's a loose fit.

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  2. Thanks Emily! I love Skin and Bones!

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