by Rachel | Apr 11, 2016
I’m a worrier by nature; always have been, always will be. So when I sang along to Bobby McFerrin’s original version of this song growing up, I’m pretty sure I was trying to convince myself to heed his advice.
I love everything about this song: the lyrics, the laid-back stye, the harmonies, and especially the way it makes me feel when I listen and sing along. Turns out it’s a crowd pleaser in just about every setting I’ve used it, including my early childhood classes, performances, and music therapy sessions.
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by Rachel | Mar 9, 2016
Once upon a time, I had a rotation of 2 or 3 hello and goodbye songs that I used across the board. But now that Katey and I write a new class curriculum every few weeks, I have amassed quite a collection of greeting songs.
This is one of the simpler goodbye tunes I’ve written. In fact, I realized this morning that I didn’t even have it written out (it only took a few minutes to create a quick lead sheet since the chords are nice and easy), nor do I have an instrumental track since I just used bare-bones ukulele accompaniment.
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by Rachel | Mar 1, 2016
I wrote this song a WHILE back, but it’s kind of perfect that I waited until now to share it with you. My baby girl has been attempting to clap her hands for the last couple of weeks, and then this morning in music class, she totally nailed it!
This song was written for young children to encourage them to clap their hands, which is pretty obvious when you listen to the song! The lyrics are to the point, and allow each child in the group to take his or her turn clapping.
Clapping is such a joyful skill, especially as children first master it and then practice nonstop. And Mia will surely get LOTS of practice, as her big brother loves to instruct us to clap for him after his singing and dancing performances :)
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by Rachel | Feb 8, 2016
As much as I love writing new songs for my music therapy sessions and classes, I think it’s equally important to share familiar songs my clients, students, and their families can sing right away. Sometimes I like to put my own spin on traditional repertoire, but in this case, I kept the recording very straightforward and simple: just the melody and ukulele accompaniment. Depending on the setting, I’ll add sign language or simple movements, though many times we’ll sing this as a cooldown at the end of a session or class.
Everybody who uses music with children should have a solid catalog of familiar tunes, and I’ve found this one to be the most often requested (including by my son, who has been asking for the “Twinkle Twinkle book” every night at bedtime lately). I’ll continue sharing more of the familiar songs I’ve recorded — sprinkled in with lots of originals, of course. What are your favorite songs to pull out when you want to get everyone singing along?
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by Rachel | Jan 26, 2016
My little students should be experts at counting to 5 by now, because we have included a song for that goal in every single one of our early childhood music classes since August. So far we’ve counted apples, pumpkins, and trees.
This session we’re counting snowflakes, and of course we have our visuals (laminated snowflake cutouts) to accompany the song. Our kiddos love gathering around and pointing to each snowflake as we count, and then they ALL want to help take one away at the end of each verse. It’s times like this that I’m happy to have my intern, Alisabeth, by my side managing the chaos ;)
We have another counting song in the works for our next session, which begins in mid-February. At the end of the summer, it will be so neat to have an entire collection. In the meantime, if you want a colorful and musical resource for counting to 10, check out this resource I put together a few years ago.
Members of Listen & Learn Plus! have access to all of the above in our shared Dropbox folder. Membership includes just about everything else in my resource library and collection — come over and join us!
