5 Musical Ways to Celebrate October
Here are 5 Musical Ways to Celebrate October! There are activities below for all your students, babies through high schoolers! Pick one to do today to include some music in your homeschool.
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Dancing Leaves
Use the music and video to encourage your kids to dance like a fall leaf!
- Hold your babies and toddlers and dance with them.
- Have preschoolers and elementary students think about the leaf attached to the tree, then the wind coming up stronger and stronger until it sends them flying through the air. When the music is softer, they can dance and twirl around slowly and gently. When the music is louder, they can move with more force and speed! Then, at the end, the wind dies down so the leaves settle to the ground.
- Add colorful scarves to make this activity even more fun.
Autumn from The Four Seasons by Vivaldi
We have to listen to “Autumn” during the autumn!
The composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was born in Venice, Italy, and his father was a violinist at St. Mark’s Cathedral. He took holy orders but because of poor health had to leave the ministry after a year. Even so, and since he had red hair, he is called the “red priest.” Vivaldi worked as a violin teacher, conductor, and composer at a girls school for orphans in Venice.
October is the perfect time to start learning Christmas Music to prepare for December performances! Head over to get Christmas Carols Made Easy!
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Scary Organ Music by Bach for Halloween
Listen next to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. It was written sometime between 1704 and 1750 and is one of the most famous organ pieces ever written.
Download a free 3-page Printable Pack to use when you study about Vivaldi, Bach, Martin Luther, or any other composer:
“A Mighty Fortress is Our God” by Martin Luther
Martin Luther wrote a document called the 95 Theses where he explained the truth and nailed it up in a public place, the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. He never expected that it would begin the Protestant Reformation. It is now every October 31 that Reformation Day is celebrated.
Martin Luther left his role as monk and priest and devoted himself to translating the Bible into German and teaching others what it said. He was married and had 6 children.
Martin Luther loved music and wrote many hymns including “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”
The previous two lessons are a part of Fall Music for Holidays & Special Days online course which contains fourteen 15-Minute Music elementary music lessons for September through November.
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Leaf Sounds
Use the following videos to help your kids begin to use their listening ears to distinguish between different leaf sounds: blowing, crunching, rustling, etc.
These kinds of listening activities are not only fun for kids, but they help them learn to use their ears better which will help them be more musical as they grow older.
Try skipping around to different parts of the videos and asking the kids to describe what they hear.
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Bonus: Some Halloween Songs from Donna Rodenizer
Check out these fun Halloween songs such as
- Jack-o’-Lantern
- Pumpkin, Pumpkin
- Five Little Pumpkins
**Do you have another fun musical idea for October? Please share in the comments below!
I’ve used Five Little Pumpkins in class. https://pianosongdownload.com/fivelittlepumpkins.html
Once the children learned the song, I let them take turns being one of the pumpkins. This is also good for sequencing with early learners.
Wonderful!
~Gena