Holiday Helpers! Musical activities for in-class or at-home

Looking for something to give your students during the final days of classes before the holiday break? Or perhaps a take-home project they can work on? The Uketropolis Team has a few ideas to help keep your students busy! Or if you're looking for online ukulele lessons, then head over to our homepage!

It's that time of year when you might be looking for some activities to keep your students engaged in those last few days of class when holiday excitement is already kicking in. Or maybe you're looking for something to give your students to keep them making and thinking music over the holidays. We've got a few ideas that can help!

Oh, no! One Baroque! 

A fresh Funbook Holiday musical puzzle featuring Jose and a box of holiday ornaments! We can always count on Zsolt Schäfer for a real brain-teaser!

Do you hear what I see?

Have your students guess the holiday melody by sight reading the excerpts in this Holiday Song Challenge, whether in class (project on screen), online (share your screen) or as an at-home challenge. Uketropolis team member Cynthia Kinnunen created this for her students last year and it was a hit!

Share that music at home

An idea we found from Suzanne Doane's wonderful Ukulele School resource book. Challenge your students to perform for family and friends over the holidays! This home concert could be an assignment or just for fun. This Ukulele in the Classroom companion resource is chock-full of great ideas and songs, and worth checking out any time of year!  (It's here in D tuning, too!)

Play, improvise, and more with the Ukulele in the Classroom Student Toolkit 

Don't forget about this fabulous resource that you can find right here at Uketropolis.com! The Ukulele in the Classroom Student Toolkit is a subscription available to your students that allows them to access amazing backing tracks and interactive scores. Give them a checklist of ways to practise over the holidays:

1. Play the song at half tempo.

2. Play the song at 125% tempo! 

3. Play the Uke 2 part along with the full backing track but with the opposite dynamics to what is written. 

Good luck keeping your students engaged and making music this holiday season. Have you got some go-to activities for this time of year? Let us know what works for you! 

Happy holidays!