by Rachel | Listen & Learn Music
My first Thanksgiving post of the season! I love, love, love this time of year and the songs and activities I have to go along with it. The 10 Days of Thanksgiving is my favorite of all, which is why I blog about it year after year.
This time around, I decided to do something new; I took the visual aide I created and set it to the music, as you saw above. My students love using the iPad in our sessions, so now I can play the video if I don’t feel like using the good ol’ fashioned paper version.
Every time I sing this song, I’m reminded of all the goals and objectives that can addressed: counting, memory recall, reading and sight words, singing along, attention to task, and more. In addition to all that good stuff, I love that it gets everyone excited for the holiday.
The video is available on YouTube, but members of Listen & Learn Plus! get the download (so that it can be used without an internet connection) — along with an instrumental version so that you and your students can sing without me.
Get immediate access to this, plus over 100 other songs, lead sheets, visual aides, and valuable resources for only $9.99 per month…learn more about becoming a member or just subscribe below. You won’t be disappointed!
Members, click here to access this post.
by Rachel | Resources & Tips
The inspiration for the song “Halloween Stew” goes back over twenty years to my elementary school days. My music teacher introduced us to “Witches’ Brew” by Hap Palmer, and it has stuck in my head ever since. I first adapted his original song a few years ago, here’s a video I made of my version.
Recently I decided to revamp it again, but this time around I opted for an alphabet theme. It’s a great opportunity to help my students practice identifying letters of the alphabet and naming objects that start with those letters. Of course, I had to create a visual to go with the song; the illustration gives you an idea of what it looks like.
I recorded this year’s version on the fly and included only the letters A through D, while the visual aide goes up to the letter H. It’s intended to be more of a starter resource for you to take and adapt on your own or with your students. The mp3, lead sheet and visual aide is available to members of Listen & Learn Plus! for download.
Get immediate access to this, plus over 100 other songs, lead sheets, visual aides, and valuable resources for only $9.99 per month…learn more about becoming a member or just subscribe below. You won’t be disappointed!
by Rachel | Listen & Learn Music, Uncategorized
I love to sing The Feelings in My Heart around this time of year, what with so much talk about Valentine’s Day, hearts, and love. This is one of my favorite Listen & Learn songs — it’s even featured on my studio album.
And that leads me to the highlight of this post: a visual aide download to go along with the song. I like to give my students an example of each emotion as it is mentioned in the song, and while in the past I’ve used illustrations, this year I wanted to use stock pictures of real children to which they could better relate.
Visual Aide Download: The Feelings in My Heart
As described in the PDF download above, I laminated the pictures, cut them out, and single-hole punched them so that I could keep them together with a binder ring. They were a hit when I used them for the first time yesterday afternoon with a group of young music therapy students. We used sign language for each emotion as we looked at the pictures during the song — talk about a multi-sensory experience!
Here’s the full song and lyrics, as well as the instrumental version. I hope you can make use of this visual aide (and if so, please let me know in the comments how you plan to do so).
by Rachel | Uncategorized
There’s a certain song I look forward to singing as soon as the leaves start turning colors, but I always hold out until November. The first line goes like this:
“On the first day of Thanksgiving, this is what I ate: some turkey on my plate.”
There are 9 more verses where that came from, all of which many of my students know by heart. Not surprising, considering this is the 3rd year in a row I’ve sung this song with them during the month of November. Even my fellow coworkers were asking about the 10 Days of Thanksgiving song way back in September.
My original recording is flying off the virtual shelves of Songs For Teaching, but I decided to give both the song and the visual aide (a 10-page PDF with pictures and lyrics for each day) that goes with it a facelift. I was so happy with the results that I wanted to make both available to you, as well as the instrumental version of the song. All three of these downloads, plus the full lyrics and chords, are available in a single album: 10 Days of Thanksgiving.
I use the visual aide two ways: 1) as a flip-book while I sing the song with one student or a small group, and 2) as individual pages that I pass out to a larger group for students to take turns holding up as their verse is sung. The song is great fun either way! Download it today for $6.00 and start using it with your own students in these next few weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.
by Rachel | Uncategorized
The first Christmas that my husband and I celebrated together, his family introduced me to a new concept. It was the “Bonus Onus” — an extra gift above and beyond what we had already received. I have grown to love that Rambach family tradition (I mean, who wouldn’t?) and today I’m going to give one to you!
You’ve probably noticed that if you sign up for my email newsletter, you get my “Weather” album completely free as a welcome gift. Those are the same weather songs I use with my students every day in the classroom and during music therapy, but there is another weather song that isn’t on that album.
“What Else Do I Need?” is a song that lists the extra things we need to wear in certain kinds of weather, like when it’s sunny, chilly, raining, or cold. I sing this right after My Clothes & Shoes (another daily fixture). I have a laminated visual aide for each type of weather which displays a picture illustrating the weather, the actual word, and the extra items of clothing or protection needed for that type of weather.
So my bonus onus to you is this: both the mp3 of “What Else Do I Need?” along with a pdf containing the sheet music & visual aides I use to go with it. The downloads will begin as soon as you click the links.
Free Download: Audio MP3 and Sheet Music + Visual Aide
I hope you enjoy and get as much use out of this song as I do! If so, you might think about joining Listen & Learn Plus, where I share downloads such as these (along with more cool stuff) every week.
