November Class Favorites

Written By Joanna Hughes

Essentially, I find that October, November, and December are the most overflowing months of the school year. As we head into concert season, I try to strike a balance of preparing for performances and touching on all the celebrations of the season. Just like I did for October (you can read these posts detailing October highlights here: Halloween Activities & October in the Music Room), I thought I’d get ahead of the curve and share some of mine and my kids’ favorites for November.

Diwali

  • Binny's Diwali I have the hard copy of this book as well, but this read along is a great way to share with your students about the holiday. The pictures are beautiful and the people who do the read aloud are really engaging. My kids love this book-it’s informative and a great way to learn and share about the holiday.

  • Dandiya Stick Dance with Manju Durairaj Once upon a time, this was in Music Express, but now I think it’s moved over to Musicplay Online. Either way, Manju has great tutorials and a quick search will lead you to some great resources.

  • Let's Celebrate 5 Days of Diwali I read this book with my younger grades (K-2) and follow up with this dance video by the author that accompanies the story.

Thanksgiving

  • Thanksgiving at Our House (Quaver) This song is the Pumpkin Bones of November. It’s a catchy earworm and my students LOVE to sing it. There’s a (complex) Orff accompaniment that pairs with it—I usually do bits and pieces of it because we don’t have time to devote to learning the whole thing. I also play this song as kids are lining up to leave almost every day in November because they just love it that much.

  • Kindness Composition Cards This activity can be used any time during the year, but I like to make the Thanksgiving-Gratitude connection. There are many ways to use these, but I typically opt for them in centers. Students create four card word chains, practice and play on body percussion, transfer the rhythms to non-pitched instruments, and ultimately create a melodic composition using Orff instruments set up in a C pentatonic scale.

So, here’s where things in November get a little sticky. Hanukkah falls on a different date every year—sometimes it lands in November and sometimes it lands in December. This year, it’s December, but I’ll probably teach my Hanukkah lessons when we get back from Thanksgiving break (still November) so that there’s enough time in December for concert prep, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Years. December is always a mad dash.

That said, here are some Hanukkah faves (in case you want to start talking about Hanukkah in November like me).

Hanukkah

  • Hands down. This is my MOST REQUESTED song of the entire year. I have students asking me to sing it in September, March, May. Doesn’t matter. They are OBSESSED. Puppy for Hanukkah. All I can say is, “Thank you, Daveed Diggs.”

  • The Dreidel Song I do a lot of different activities with this. First, we sing the song. Then we sing it SIX times through, but only sing on specific words:

    • Whole song

    • Dreidel

    • Dreidel + Clay

    • Dreidel + Clay + Play

    • Dreidel + Clay + Play + I

    • Whole song

      • Once they’ve done this a few times, I give them tennis balls and they have to sing/bounce the balls on the specific words. So.Much.Fun.

  • Expanding on The Dreidel Song I show this video by the Maccabeats. At this point, they know the song well and love listening to the ways they play with genre. Also a great way to talk about acapella singing.

So…what are YOUR plans this November?!

Joanna

Joanna Hughes
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October in the Music Room