In today’s blog, I will be sharing 5 Thanksgiving lesson ideas to incorporate into your General Music classes! If you are new around here, my name is Jessie and I am an Elementary Kindergarten through 6th Grade General Music Teacher in Arizona and, along with this blog, I also have a YouTube channel where I share modern lesson ideas, organizational tips and everything in the General music world!
Lesson Idea #1: Shoo Turkey – Lesson Adapted from Lynn Kleiner
This is a super fun and approachable instrument activity that I have used with my Kindergarten through 2nd grade classes!
Teaching Process:
First, we listen to the recording and I ask the students what words or phrases they hear a lot (repeat). Eventually, after they say “Yes, ma’am”, we talk briefly about how it is a “Call and Response” song during the A section. I have them prepare for the instrument activity by singing and clapping the response (Yes, ma’am).
We continue preparing for the instrument activity by getting into a circle. I tell the students that during the A section “Yes, ma’am”, they will be playing an instrument during that part in the future. For the B section, we practice standing up and walking around in a circle, as this will be how the students will rotate to a new instrument.
During the next class, I have the instruments out and set up ready to go for them to play along on the “Yes, ma’am” during the A section and then rotate to a new instrument during the B section.
Behavior Management Tips:
- On the instrument day, do a quick review of how to play lesser known instruments
- Have multiples of each instrument to limit any potential battling for an instruments!
- If a particular class is having a tough time, simplify by having less variety of instruments or even just one type of instrument (i.e. all egg shakers).
- During the rotating B section, oftentimes kids won’t end up perfectly lined up behind a new instrument, which can sometimes lead to confusion or fighting over an instrument. Before doing the activity, act out this situation and show how they can problem solve!
- For example, I might say, “David, Emily, and Joey are next to each other in the circle. David and Joey have an egg shaker in front of them, but Emily in the middle doesn’t have one in front of her! What can she do? She can look around the circle for an open spot, move there and that’s her new spot!”
After all that preparation, the kids absolutely LOVE this activity, especially with the recording, as it has such a fun beat and groove!
Lesson Idea #2: Thanksgiving Food Rhythm Practice – Freebie
Each plate has a different pattern of 4 Thanksgiving day foods with a corresponding rhythm to match the food items. I made two different versions focusing Tika-tika and one with Tika-ti/Ti-tika for my oldest students.
One way that I love using this to practice notation is by having students use popsicle sticks to create the rhythm of the 4 foods and then we check our answers on the slide with the stick notation. To differentiate, you could also have them copy down the rhythm from the slide rather than figuring it out aurally, as both are important skills.
Lesson Idea #3: Turkey Trot Activity (Rhythm Trot) – Freebie
I have used this type of activity with my 3rd grade classes and up! Essentially, for each “mile”, there is a new rhythm challenge and this could certainly be adapted to any other concept or focus! I usually have 3 miles (3 challenges) and make a leaderboard to display the winning group members’ names.
I have a whole-group version that you can use as a springboard to create your own or use as-is!
Download the resource here!
Lesson Idea #4: Solfège Practice – Thanksgiving Day Parade – New resource!
I created this resource to practice aurally identifying known solfege syllables in stick notation (so/mi for 1st, adding la for 2nd, and do/re for 3rd grade)!
The goal of the activity is to help organize the balloons and floats in the correct order for the Thanksgiving Day Parade by aurally identifying matching solfege patterns!
Teaching Process:
First Lesson – Interactive Google Slides presentation
- The kids see 3 floats/balloons, each with a different solfège pattern in stick notation. When they click on the Parade volunteer, they’ll hear an audio recording of one of those 3 solfège patterns. Students will aurally identify which one matches and then they’ll move to the next balloon or float!
Second Lesson – Manipulative Cards
- There’s a Parade Route road Game board that the students can use in pairs/small groups to organize/practice with cards or differentiate the lesson if they had a tougher time with the initial activity.
Lesson Idea #5: Virtual Field Trip to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – Freebie!
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is such an iconic event that I love sharing a bit about with my students each year. I created a simple presentation of short videos that I found that discuss the history of the event, artistry behind the balloons/floats, and the musicians/artists that perform!
I love doing this toward the end of the lesson to bring down the energy level as they transition from perhaps a high-energy activity back down to getting ready to leave for the day.
Those are my 5 Thanksgiving lesson ideas for you to use during this season! I hope you find them helpful and let me know if you have any other great lesson ideas for this time of year!
Jessie Powell
Music and Motivate
