Holiday Music Activities: How to Survive the Last Days!
Do you need some easy holiday music activities to get you through the week? After using up all your energy to present the very best holiday concert season, it can be exhausting coming up with lesson plans for these last few days before a much-needed winter break. Here are games, puzzles, stories, coloring, and oh yes music activities to use with ease.
Christmas Carole Game Holiday Music Activities
These holiday music activities will let you kick your feet up! Let your students wander the room to decipher 24 picture clues of Christmas Carols. Students will match the picture with the song title on their worksheet. Picture clues can be three kings’ crowns for “We Three Kings,” or antlers and a red dot for “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
You can add a challenging level by having students guess the title without giving the song titles to match. Students can work in groups and if they are struggling then let them have song titles to choose from.
Fill the rest of your time by adding holiday music activities of singing the carols. Use the pictures or worksheet as a songboard choice. Then sing through the songs that students choose. Buy a simple piano accompaniment book of song carols or find the sing-a-long karaoke versions on YouTube that students can easily join in singing.
The same picture clues make a perfect bingo board for students to play Christmas Carol Bingo. Older students would enjoy hints of Christmas Carol songs to fill in a crossword puzzle: 2 down accessorized wall – “Deck the Halls.”
The Nutcracker: Holiday Music Activities to Save Your Voice
I always look forward to Holiday music activities centered around The Nutcracker. Students love to hear the magical story of the Nutcracker. This one is already recorded and narrated. Just click through the digital version and the story is read out loud so you can save your voice.
After the story, use the Nutcracker coloring pages to review dynamics. Students will recognize characters from the story Nutcracker, Sugar Plum Fairy, Mouse King, and a present. Bingo is also fun to play with the Nutcracker characters.
Have you ever tried a digital puzzle? Students just click, hold, and move the pieces in place. A transparent photo under the pieces will help guide students to the correct location, and the pieces will never get lost.
Word searches are an easy fun way to remind students of the story. Students can search for character names and sweet treats from the Land of Sweets. Read more ideas for using The Nutcracker here.
Composer Music Escape Room Holiday Music Activities
My favorite activity is a music composer escape room. These three composers are a great fit for the holidays Tchaikovsky for The Nutcracker, Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride” and Prokofiev’s “Troika.”
Escape rooms are a fun activity to send students off for winter break and you can feel a sense of accomplishment by sharing one of these great composers and keeping your students interested in the wonder of music. Escape rooms can be completed as a class, in groups, or individually.
These are simple and easy-to-use escape rooms with a video to introduce the composer, reading material, worksheet tasks, and decipher escape clues. The video introduction sets the stage, creates a mood, and saves your voice. Reading material can be printed or shared digitally on Google Slides. A listening map engages students in the composer’s music.
Students complete other music worksheets to engage and help them to retain new information on music history. After each task is completed, students receive a deciphering clue which will eventually lead them to decipher their escape.
Check out all these ideas below that you can add to your teaching music toolbox and have on hand year after year.
