During this last week leading up to the 31st, I’m squeezing in as many Halloween songs as possible — both here and with my students. “Orange and Black” is one I wrote recently and have been singing all month.
Since so many of the classrooms are decorated to the nines for Halloween, we play our own version of “I Spy” and add all kinds of orange and black items to the list I’ve got going in each verse.
O-R-A-N-G-E is the color that you see
On Halloween, on Halloween.
Orange is all around,
Left and right and up and down,
On Halloween, on Halloween.
Candy corn, and pumpkins,
Decorations too,
Orange is everywhere on Halloween,
It’s true.
O-R-A-N-G-E is the color that you see
On Halloween, Halloween.
B-L-A-C-K is the color here to stay
On Halloween, on Halloween.
Black is all around,
Left and right and up and down,
On Halloween, on Halloween.
Witches’ hats, cats and bats,
Spiders too,
Black is everywhere on Halloween,
It’s true.
B-L-A-C-K is the color here to stay
On Halloween, Halloween.
O-R-A-N-G-E spells orange.
B-L-A-C-K spells black.
Orange and black are the colors that you see
On Halloween.
We also look for orange and black in some of my favorite Halloween books for kids, including Ten Timid Ghosts, Skeleton Hiccups, Dem Bones, and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat. (I’m a huge fan of the “Old Lady” books, and already looking forward to pulling out this one next month!)
What kinds of Halloween songs, books, and activities do you have up your sleeve this week? I’m already working on my list for next year, so please share!
I have been using “Dem Bones” with my students but I have been using large cut outs of skeletal bones and as a group, they put the skeleton together as we sing the song.
Another great Halloween book is “Halloween Pie” by Michael O. Tunnell. I have been using it as a musical listening experience where a certain instrument is played when a certain word comes up in the story. For example we used a drum for the word “pie”, whistle for the word “wind”, cabasa for “witch”, shaker for “spell” and resonator bells for the “graveyard creatures” “ghost” “goblin”, etc. So when the students heard the word that corresponded to their instrument they got to play!
What a cool idea for “Dem Bones” – I love it! Also, I will definitely need to check out that book…thank you for sharing and for your explanation of how you use the instruments :)
I just posted an article on my blog about one of my favorite Halloween singable stories! It’s called “The 13 Days of Halloween”. I’ve been using it with quite a few of my clients this year and they’ve been loving it!
Awesome! I will go check it out right now. Thanks Megan!