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Are you ready for some exciting glow in the dark music activities? You are going to love them! I don’t teach regular piano lessons the week of Halloween. Let’s get real, nobody really wants a lesson on Halloween nor do I want to be teaching on Halloween. So we do group lessons that week. 

In the past we have always done Halloween activities, and we definitely have our favorite Halloween games, but last year I wanted to change things up and do a Rhythm and Glow group lesson. I want to give a quick shout-out to my friend Valerie Merrell for inspiring me to think about how I could implement this idea with my students. The great thing about glow activities is that it is a perfect activity if you can’t do Halloween or have students who don’t celebrate. We had so much fun that I wanted to do it again this year but add a couple of different glow in the dark music activities in the mix.

Here is a video from 2023 (last year)…

GLOW CUP PASSING GAME

In last year’s group lesson we did glow rhythm cups with the Addams Family cup passing game. (I went the cheaper route and just placed the glow sticks on the bottom of clear cups. They fit perfectly!) 

FOAM GLOW STICK RHYTHM

I ordered these cool foam glow sticks (re-used them this year). We used the foam glow sticks for rhythm activities.

Here are some video activities I used on YouTube last year…

• Poison Rhythm Halloween Play Along
• Halloween Rhythm Groove
• Spooky Scary Skeltons

This year we also tried…

• Thriller – Halloween Bucket Drumming

We didn’t have time for this one, but this was an “if time” body percussion… (I always have an “if time” activity if we have extra time)

• Halloween the hall of the mountain king body percussion play along

GLOW RHYTHM DICTATION

This year I added a couple more glow activities. I added in some rhythm dictation. I used The Rhythm Randomizer for the rhythms. If you haven’t used this yet, definitely check it out. It’s free and customizable! I love it! Students used glow sticks to answer.

LIGHT UP MUSICAL RIDDLES

I used the musical riddles resource and had students draw/write their answers using these invisible ink pens. (By the way, I updated this resource to include a sheet for them to answer if you want to use it) They used the UV light that is attached to the pen to check their answers. They loved it and were able to take their pen home.

Here is this year’s Rhythm and Glow video…

I even bought this t-shirt to wear. lol!

OTHER GLOW IN THE DARK MUSIC ACTIVITY IDEAS

Want some more ideas for your glow lesson? How about…

• Glow Stick Conducting – Teach students how to conduct using their glow stick or glow foam stick.
• Glow Stick Freeze – Play music and have students dance with their glow sticks. When the music stops, they must freeze in place. Everything is more fun with glow sticks!
• Vocal exploration – Use glow sticks for students to manipulate as students are singing high and low pitches.
• Glow Symbols – Create symbols and rhythms using glow sticks!
• Glow Notes – Create a staff and a whole note with glow sticks and then review notes! Can do the same thing on a keyboard. Just create a whole note with a glow stick and place it on a keyboard mat for review.

As you can see, a lot of “normal” activities can GLOW simply by lighting it up in some way! And the cool thing? This activity can really work anytime of year. It doesn’t HAVE to be done in October! Do you have some other glow activity ideas? We would all love to hear! Please comment below…

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