I'm starting to ease into Halloween themed lessons now, and I had a lot of success with this Rhythm Monsters activity today. My first graders have been preparing half notes for a few weeks and this was the first time they saw it and had practice writing it down. For the rhythm monsters lesson, I created this page with 20 different rhythm examples. I'll be honest: the rhythm content really had NOTHING to do with monsters. All I did was put a picture of a monster above each rhythm example and the students were hooked right away. I had each student select four cards and practice clapping/reading their pattern, and then copy it onto their worksheet. I like this activity because the students are being eased into the concept of composition. They are still making aesthetic decisions regarding what order to put their monsters, but without all the stress that comes with having to create rhythms from scratch. Click here to download the entire lesson (includes SmartNotebook file, worksheet, and monster cards) for free!