December is one of the busiest months of the year for music teachers. We balance student performances, personal performances for our own places of worship and professional ensembles, as well as taking care of our own families and holiday traditions. There’s rarely a moment to relax, let alone lesson plan! I’m sharing some of my favorite (and easy) lessons for December! They require very little prep and I share how I connect content to fun activities. You’re students will have a great time, learn, and you can take a much needed moment to breath!
Cup Songs
There are so many great cup song routines to Holiday songs! You could just click play on the video and let your kids play-along, but this is a great opportunity to get your students thinking rhythmically! Here are some ways I connect rhythmic content to cup song routines:
- Identify the repeating patterns in each cup song routine.
- Invite students to associate solfege to each rhythm pattern they hear in the piece.
- Invite students to write out the rhythm patterns they hear in the piece.
- For younger students, you could write out the rhythm patterns in the piece and ask students to match the written rhythm with the one they are playing.
- Identify the meter and the macrobeat/ microbeat of each piece.
- Identify the form of the piece.
- Invite students to create their own rhythm pattern to include in the piece.
Boomwhacker Play-Alongs
Musication has an amazing series of Boomwhacker Play-Along videos. What I love the most about these videos is that students get visual representation of melodies. Here are some of the things we learn about melodies:
- Melodies often begin and end of the resting (home) tone.
- Melodies can move up or down by step, skip, or leap.
- Melodies have a tonality (often major or minor).
- Melodies are accompanied by harmony.
- Melodies can be sung or played on instruments.
Using these 5 “truths” about melodies, discuss what the students see and hear in the boomwhacker play-along videos. Can your students identify the resting tone of the song? Does the song begin and end on the resting tone? Can they describe the melodic contour of the song? Can they identify the tonality? Can they identify whether they are playing the melody or harmony? These are all great questions to connect melodic concepts to any boomwhacker play-along video!
Nutcracker Activities
Why not take advantage of the season and teach content from The Nutcracker? There is so much amazing, musical content you can teach from this classical work!
- Musical Styles – Retell the story of The Nutcracker using your favorite version of the storybook. Explain how The Nutcracker is a ballet, a story told with dance and music. Then show key scenes from the ballet.
- Do listening activities with your students from The Nutcracker. There are so many short pieces that illustrate form beautifully! I have a set of listening maps and listening activities available in my TpT store!
- Get your students moving to the music of The Nutcracker! I wrote a blog post about some of my favorite movement activities. One of my students’ favorite activities are Dance & Freeze movement activities. I’ve got a fun one that is specifically for The Nutcracker too!
Write the Room Activities
Have you ever tried a Write the Room activity? My students LOVE them! This is one of those simple, easy, print & post activities! I hide 10 posters around the room, each one with a different rhythm on it. Students go around the room with their own clipboard and paper trying to locate all 10 posters. As they find each one, they write the rhythm pattern on their own sheet. Once they’ve found all 10 rhythm patterns, they go back to their seat and practice reading each rhythm pattern with a friend.
You can extend the activity by having students play the rhythm on an instrument or reading the first pattern, then improvising one of their own. When students are all done, I call out a number (or character), and the kids read the rhythm back to me. It’s a great way to reinforce musical reading and writing skills. I have a set of rhythm and tonal Write the Room Activities available here.
What are your favorite, easy go-to lessons or activities for December? Leave me a comment below! I’d love to hear from you!
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