These dreary wintry days have me longing for spring and all of its colors, so I’ve taken that inspiration into my music therapy sessions and music classes with a few colorfully themed songs.
Identifying colors is an important developmental skill for young children, so it’s only natural to practice that skill in a musical context. In this post, I’ve featured two songs that creatively address color identification while targeting some additional goals as well!
The following is a guest post by Yaniza, a bilingual singer-songwriter based in New York City. Yaniza’s tunes bring joy and sunshine to its listeners through catchy lyrics meshed with acoustic guitar, ukulele, or piano base. Much like her home city, Yaniza’s music is a melting pot of calm, upbeat, and everything in between.
“Fly Away (Free Bird)” is a melodic little reminder for everyone to embrace their inner free spirit. When I wrote the song, I was feeling very stuck in a routine. The only way to get myself out of that rut was to write my feelings into a song!
Those of us who work with young children know how essential movement is to a successful music therapy session or music class. Although movement is necessary, sometimes when all of the kiddos get up to move, chaos can break out and spread like wildfire!
As a young music therapist, it was hard to manage gross motor movement songs effectively; it always seemed like my clients and students would become dysregulated, run around, and have difficulty following along. As the years go on, I’ve gotten a little bit wiser, and have learned to work smarter and not harder when it comes to movement interventions.
This year, like so many years before, I set out to become a paper planner person. There’s something so appealing about the idea of organizing my life inside of a pretty planner full of fresh paper, but I haven’t been able to follow through with the implementation…until now.
Sometimes I hear a song on the radio, and I think to myself, “Okay, how can I bring this into my music therapy sessions or music classes?” I’m sure that’s what was going through Rachel’s mind when she decided to use this 50-year-old song in her classes and sessions!
Today, I’d like to explain all the ways I’ve been using this song to reach the goals and objectives my clients and students are striving for in music therapy and music enrichment classes.
Welcome! I’m Rachel Rambach, board-certified music therapist and creator of Listen & Learn Music — educational songs and musical materials for children. I love sharing my work with you, along with my behind-the-scenes creative process, adventures in business ownership, and life as a mom of two.
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