Music Therapy Halloween Intervention Ideas!
Hello everyone, welcome to another blog post!
I realize that it is now November, but I still wanted to share some Halloween music therapy intervention ideas so that you all can start preparing for next year’s Halloween! All credits go to one of our wonderful music therapists, Esther Hood! She is the queen of coming up with new and creative intervention ideas for our clients.
One of the best things about these interventions is that they can be adapted for individual and group clients. We used these with our individual clients with autism, along with clients with special needs at group homes (6-8 people), and clients with special needs at a day facility (20-30 people). All of these interventions are based on attention goals, more specifically, MACT (for those of you who are familiar with NMT!) I will specify later on what goals we used for each intervention.
- Halloween Hike
This is such a fun song to use, all of our clients really enjoyed all of the sound effects and interactive visuals! The lyrics to the song can be found here. A recording of this song can be found here. For this intervention, we worked on sustained attention. Visuals are passed out to the clients, each person either getting 1 or 2 depending on the size of the group. Visuals can be found here. If there are not enough visuals to go around, you can have the rest of the clients participate by making the sound effects and listening for what is next in the song! During the Halloween Hike, different objects are spotted throughout the song, and it is the clients’ job to pay attention to when their object is called, and then hold it up for the whole group to see, and then drop it in a plastic cauldron (if available), or a frame drum. For example, the first thing found on the hike is an owl, and whoever is holding the owl, they hold it up, and then drop it in the cauldron.
You can also choose to make noises that associate with each object as another way to engage your clients, such as hooting like an owl. Continue this until all the objects have been called until the end of the song. During the line, “let’s get out of here!”, you can rapidly strum the guitar and have the clients run in place. This intervention can also be easily adapted for an individual client, but instead of giving them all 12 of the visuals at once, you can split them up into a field of 3 or more, depending on your client.
2. ~Spooky~ Bear Went Over The Mountain
This intervention takes the traditional song, “Bear Went Over the Mountain”, and gives it a spooky twist by playing the song in a minor key! I have been playing it in A minor, and the chords are I-IV-V. For this intervention, you can work on several different goals. I have used it with one of my clients who has a goal about decision making (MEFT), or you can also use this as another attention intervention (MACT). You may also choose to use this in a group setting. The visuals needed for this intervention can be found here and here.
For this intervention, the client gets the opportunity to choose the lyrics that go into the song. The traditional version has the lyrics, “the bear went over the mountain”, but for this intervention, the client chooses words that replaces “bear” and “mountain”, with Halloween-related objects. For example, one of the flash cards says “bat” and “black cat”, which you would then insert into the song, and sing:
“The bat flew over the black cat,
the bat flew over the black cat,
the bat flew over the black cat
to say Happy Halloween!”
You can engage the client even further by having them sing along with you, or pausing before the object, and having them read the card out loud to you as a fill-in-the-blank exercise.
3. Hound Dog, but with monsters!
Another great intervention that I’ve seen Esther use is a piggyback version of the song “Hound Dog”. She first starts by showing the group pictures of different monsters related to Halloween, such as Frankenstein, a mummy, a vampire, etc. She asks the group (or can also be an individual client), what the monster is, and then what is something that they would do. For example, a common action for a vampire is to flip their cape. After deciding on an action, have clients mirror the action of the monster. Then, you can start singing “Hound Dog”, but insert the name of the monster into the song. Here is an example:
“You ain’t nothing but a vampire,
Flipping your cape all around [pause for action],
You ain’t nothing but a vampire,
Flipping your cape all around [pause for action],
Well you ain’t never caught a rabbit,
And you ain’t no friend of mine!”
4. Ghostbusters!
One of the most iconic and recognizable Halloween songs of all time is Ghostbusers! This is a great intervention that I have used with both older adults and adults with special needs. For older adults, this can work on short term memory and gross motor movements, and with adults with special needs, this can work on attention and gross motor movements.
For this intervention, I play a recording of Ghostbusters, and explain to the clients that every time they hear “Ghostbusters”, to raise their shakers high up in the air. If they have never heard the song before, I like to do a few trial runs by singing, “who you gonna call… Ghosbusters!” and modelling holding my shaker high up in the air. For adults with special needs, you can also use instruments, or you can use visuals of ghosts or other Halloween related objects.
Throughout the entire song, you can explain to your clients that they can shake along with their instruments to get some exercise, and to be sure they are listening for their musical cues of when to hold up their shakers.
I’d love to hear from you all! What are some Halloween interventions that you’ve used in your music therapy sessions, or what are some of your favorite holidays to plan themes around?
See you in the next post!
– Juliana Hsu
