Hopefully yesterday’s post is helping you make use of your candy stash, but what about all those Halloween bits and bobs that aren’t edible? Let’s start up where I left off yesterday…

Percussion!

Did you collect your candy in a bucket? If so, turn it over (when it’s empty!) and start playing your Halloween drum. Looking for drumsticks? Did you get any pencils? If you got the sort with erasers on the end (or if you got any erasers with holes for pencils) then try using the pencil end and then the eraser end and listen out for the difference in sound.

If you have more than one little trick or treater who collected a can of pop they could both try tapping the sides with their pencil- (or lollypop-) beaters between sips to see who has the most left in their can. Listen out for the difference in pitch: a lower sound = more drink left in the can.

How about one of those mini slinky plastic springs? I tried stretching ours over small tub and using it as a sort of guiro/scraper. You can play it with your pencil or fingernail. NB. A container with rounded corners is useful for keeping your spring in place – you could also try taping it down if it keeps popping off, although it’s fun to experiment with the sound as you alter the stretch of the spring.

Which Hand?

My kids got a good variety of bracelets, stamps, stickers and tattoos. For young children still struggling with knowing their right from left, you can use any of these things to help mark the difference.

Which Finger?

It can sometimes take quite a while for young pianists to get the hang of their finger numbers. Dollar store rings can be a fun way to help with this. The simplest activity is to challenge your kid/student to put a ring on (for example) left hand, finger 4 (or one on each of their finger 4s to help with the concept of the hands mirroring each other). You can do one finger at a time, or try to build up a whole hand covered with rings – kids with magpie-like tendencies enjoy doing this with a collection of colourful/shiny toy rings.

For my beginning students I put together a simple version of Mary Had a Little Lamb using rings to help identify which fingers to use. You can grab a copy at the bottom of this post if you’d like.

This is another activity that you can do with stickers or stamps – stamping or sticking something on the sheet music and then putting a matching stamp, sticker or colour on the corresponding hands and fingers.

Memorisation/Keyboard Familiarity

Did your trick or treaters collect any glow sticks/jewellery? How about challenging them to play the piano in the dark with just the light of their accessories to give them the occasional clue (or stop them from getting spooked)!

Breath Control

As usual, a lot of my ideas are centred around the keyboard, but if you collected any bubbles, these are great for practising using a controlled breath for singing or playing wind instruments. Also, just the process of dipping the wand in the mixture (and not spilling it!) is great for hand-eye coordination. See, life skills – not just music 😉

Composition

Yesterdays post included a printable composition sheet. We found some cute little pumpkin stickers which could be used to make a composition that lasts a little longer than the candy version! You could use them for dictation activities, too.

Finger Strength / Fine Motor Skills

I love those little pots of Play-Doh as a Halloween treat/loot bag staple.

Try pushing fingers into the dough to practice using tips of fingers rather than pads (making circles rather than ridges) and strengthen fingers.

To make it more piano-specific you can flatten out a rectangle and score lines for the edges of piano keys and practice legato and staccato techniques.

You can also work on rhythmic values and patterns with rolled up dots and ‘sausages’ of dough.

Giving Back

Some kind people give out toothbrushes and dental floss in our area. I guess these are best used for the intended purpose. If you don’t need them you can always pack them up with some other essentials (and treats) and see if they can be used at your local hospital or homeless shelter (or cut out the middle-man and hand them over next time you pass a homeless person).

Of course, I can’t resist adding my musical spin…if you’re about to bin an old toothbrush, you could consider re-purposing it as a drumstick/brush – we made witches’-broom sound effects with paint brushes in our Kindergarten music class last week, but a toothbrush would make a somewhat sturdier sound!

And dental floss could used to make a harp or even string a guitar! I have a packet of dental floss that my youngest unwound while I wasn’t looking so maybe that’s best used for music rather than mouths!

One Last Halloween Treat…

… here’s the Halloween printable for beginner pianists I mentioned above, the clip art isn’t by me – I’ll add the credits to comments.

mary_had_bat

If you don’t happen to have rings in the colours or designs I’ve used, you can cut out the little pictures at the top of the sheet and stick them onto rings (or directly onto fingers). Alternatively, a dot of washable pen in the appropriate colour will do. Slightly older children will probably be able to follow without using rings/colours anyway. I personalised my copies with the names of my students; I’ve left a blank space for you to do the same.