It’s time once again to give you the run-down of all of the wonderful Listen & Learn sponsors. I’m extremely proud to feature all of the following resources here on the blog — please take a few minutes to check them out below:
I’m thrilled to welcome the newest Listen & Learn Sponsor: A Perfect Lullaby. This is a CD that helps moms and dads sing to their babies. Research shows that singing to infants has many benefits for babies AND parents. Make sure to visit the website for educational resources including podcasts and articles, and to hear the music.
Kimberly Thompson and Megan Resig are the fabulous music therapists who run this private practice in Portland, OR and manage the popular blog by the same name. Check out their Wellness Wednesday column, join them on Facebook, and follow Kimberly and Megan on Twitter.
If you would like to get your young children started on piano lessons, you can start teaching them at home, even if you have no music training. All you need is a keyboard or piano and You Can Make Music at the Keyboard, Young Beginner Book I. Leslie Denning, better known as Miss Leslie, is a piano teacher and early childhood music education specialist, who has put together a package that makes it easy to teach piano at home. Through colors, audio, and video, you and your child will learn to recognize the keys on the piano, notes on the staff, and rhythmic and melodic patterns. There are many fun activities to reinforce the feeling of steady beat, musical direction, and high and low. This method is written for children from 3 to 7 and may also be used with children who have learning disabilities. To find out more, go to Preschool Piano with Miss Leslie.
Opus Music Education offers a searchable database of music teachers in California and affordable private music lessons in virtually every instrument. Every first music lesson is always free. Opus also offers Opus Music Worksheets, a database of high quality, free printable music education resources, including free music theory worksheets, free music flashcards, free music business forms, and many other free music learning resources for music teachers, music students, and parents.
OnlinePianist is getting ready to launch a “Virtual Piano” section. Included in this new section is an interactive virtual keyboard with cool features (sustain pedal, playing both on the mouse or keyboard and more). Look for an iPad app from this online piano resource, coming soon!
Theta Music Trainer has added several new features in the past month, including the option to use solfege syllables instead of numbers for some of the games. It is also much easier for teachers to send assignments to students now, and students can click on a link in the mail to go directly to the assigned game and level. Finally, if you don’t yet have full access, please check out their 20% off Holiday Special!
Margie La Bella, a music therapist and educator, manages Music Therapy Tunes and is now offering free mp3 downloads of Christmas and Chanukah songs for music therapy! She will soon post some January/Winter songs and at least one will have a great free download. Margie is still willing to trade a song for a music therapy activity to post on her site, and she has a new blog that she hopes is very helpful to interns and other student music therapists and student teachers.
Susan at Make Me Musical invites you to roam her site for inspiration and ideas in your music and dance work with children. Susan has recently been published in “My Favorite Christmas Memory”. This book climbed to #1 in the “Happiness” category on Amazon.com this month. If you’re an amazon shopper you can order here. Susan wishes you Festive Fun and Merry Music-Making this Season. May the year of 2012 envelop you in Great Peace, Big Joy, Divine Love and Inspirational Hope!
Have you heard about the Soundbeam? This seriously cool system detects the distance, direction and velocity of body movements in a defined space, and translates these body gestures into control signals for creating electronic music or manipulating multimedia. It’s being used in special education, music therapy, the music classroom, museums, and science centers…and you can learn all about it at the website of our wonderful sponsor, SoundTree.
Involve Me Music: Solutions for Music Educators provides a blog, individual and group consultation services (live and via phone and skype), workshops and presentations. Board-certified music therapist Jennifer Sokira offers a down-to-earth and practical perspective, with the intention of helping music teachers develop relationships with their special education students, allowing them to better participate in, enjoy, and benefit from music education. Be sure to sign up for the free Involve Me Music newsletter.
More With Music is a song resource website where parents, teachers, and therapists can find songs to help teach the students in their lives. Amanda Ellis manages More With Music and works as a full-time music therapist in a public school setting with students ages 5-22. Songs posted on More with Music can be purchased online for 99 cents each and song sheets (complete with guitar chords and lyrics), are free by request. Do you need a song to help teach a skill or accomplish a specific goal? Amanda also takes requests and can write songs for specific goals and skills by request. It all starts with an email to morewithmusic@gmail.com.
Stefanie Anderson Eckert, MM, MT-BC is the owner of A-Z Music Therapy Services, which provides services to individuals with disabilities in San Antonio and South Central Texas. Stefanie works in many different settings, including schools for children with autism and assisted living facilities. Her website offers additional resources and contact information for individuals interested in her services.
Kimberly Sena Moore, the Music Therapy Maven also co-manages Music Therapy Pro and just completed the first semester of her doctoral studies at UMKC! Join Kimberly’s newsletter to keep up with the latest music therapy happenings, musings, and much more! Look for Kimberly to appear as a guest author and contributor in two different publications next month.
Rhythm Ring rocks! If you haven’t picked up your own Rhythm Ring yet (they are only $5 each!) then you need to drop everything and get one. I love mine, and use it all the time with my students, at gigs, and even in my “Sunday Singalong” videos. Follow them on Facebook and Twitter for the latest news and announcements.
Joyfull Cup has an exciting new focus! Fundraising! Do you own a non-profit, or do your kids have to fundraise for their extra curricular activities? Why not raise some money and be able to offer a healthy alternative to cookie dough or wrapping paper? This fundraising opportunity will be selling healthy coffee! I bet almost everyone you know drinks coffee, why not offer them a healthy alternative? If you are interested in more information, please contact Stephanie Shehan at steph_music@yahoo.com.
The Music Therapy Tween recently got a face lift! Check out the new look and see what Michelle Erfurt, the tween herself, is up to. Also, be sure to take a look at Michelle’s specialty: Boom Totes! These boomwacker bags were a huge hit at the national music therapy conference earlier last month, and are still selling like hotcakes. Order yours today.
Interested in becoming a Listen & Learn sponsor?
You can get the full scoop on sponsorship, including all the perks, right here. Sign up now and get your first shout-out in January!
