Good Morning!

So, I wanted to post another song that is originally from Bear in the Big Blue House. It is such a nice song and I've had it in my head for days already! :)

It is the Good morning song and I originally was reminded of the song's greatness after reading the blog of one of my online friends, Rachel Rambach. She is an amazing board certified music therapist with an awesome voice and great ideas! You can find her website and blog here.

I actually heard this Good morning song quite a lot when my son was much younger, but I vividly remember him loving it too. I recorded my own version of it and added myself playing a violin harmony to it. I really like it and am excited that I'm learning my way around the audacity program (that I use to record songs).

My son starts kindergarten tomorrow and he's already requested this song for his "breakfast music". He loves to choose music to listen to while we eat at the table, play with toys and/or dance around. He told me my recording was "pretty good", so I'll take that as a good vote and share it with all of you!



I hope you all have a great Monday and a Good Morning!

Finding the Lyrics

How many times have you tried to sing a song and forgot some or most of the lyrics (words)?

I rarely forget the lyrics to the songs I write, but I often check and search for lyrics when I plan on using a song written by another artist in sessions.

I came across a website this weekend that I wanted to share. The website is basically a site where you can search for songs by name, artist, band and/or the lyrics you can remember. You can find the website here.


Hope you are all enjoying the weekend!

Goodbye Song

Here's a Goodbye Song I plan on using this year.

I owe it all to Bear in the Big Blue House! My son absolutely LOVED Bear in the Big Blue House when he was between the ages of 1-3 1/2 years old. The songs on the movies are very catchy and upbeat!

I decided to use the Goodbye Song, which is sung at the end of every show. I use the first part usually heard on the movies, and then adapted my own way of fitting each student's names in the song to say goodbye to each individual student.

During sessions, I plan on playing this quite a bit slower and adding a little space between each student so they will have time (to be cued, to use their voice or voice output device,etc), to say goodbye.



I hope everyone had a marvelous Monday! :)

Back to School!

Here's a little jingle I wrote about going back to school. It's still a work in progress, but I thought I should go ahead and share it because it relates to last week and this week in most places across the world!


Hope you have a great week!

© 2009 Amanda Ellis

Learning a Phone Number

Ring, Ring, Ring-a-ling!


Here's another song I wanted to share for the beginning of the school year. This song addresses learning a phone number. You can incorporate lots of activities to help a student learn their home phone number, but I have found short jingles help the most and keep things fun!

What songs do you use to teach a phone number?

© 2009 Amanda Ellis

And a special thanks to all the feedback I've received via email!

The first five responders this past week have been identified and their free CDs are in the mail.
Hope you have a great weekend!

Group Song

I just finished my first "project" with the audacity program and wanted to post it for all of you to hear. It's one of my previously posted songs, "Clap Your Hands", but it is a favorite of several of the kids I see each week.

I love this song (personally) because I can use it with a variety of ages with a variety of abilities. I wrote it specifically for a class of students that don't generally get out of their seats. I also use this song with the help of visual aids (Boardmaker picture cards) of the body parts mentioned and I allow the student to tell me, "What's next?" or "Sometimes I want to..." and they complete the sentence. You can pace the song faster for higher functioning students, but I think the song is a great one to follow any "Hello Song" as a good "ice breaker"!


Hope you have a terrific week and thanks for stopping by! :)

Motivating Mondays!

Everything seems to stay busy around here!
Work is steady (which I'm thankful and tired from at the same time), and the start of another school year is literally right around the corner. My son will start Kindergarten this year and we are in the midst of getting ready for the schedule change that goes along with a full school day for him.

As for blogging, I intend to daily or at least a couple times each week, but lately that has not been possible. I hope to get on a more regular schedule of posting as I get used to the new fall schedule.

I'm so excited to see 900 hits on my blog and eagerly look forward to posting more songs and ideas soon! I've also been guitar shopping and think I might have found "the one" for me at this point! I've also been learning my way around a recording program called Audacity. So, hopefully, I can post some better sounding tunes soon!

For today's Motivating Mondays post, I decided to share another website I actually stumbled upon over the weekend. It is called the Mosaic Project.

The Mosaic Project is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization that works toward a peaceful future by reaching children in their formative years. On their site, they feature songs about empathy, diversity, conflict resolution, and peace. Their music targets the 4th and 5th grade audience, but is hip and catchy enough to appeal to all ages.

I encourage you to check them out and listen to their songs!

Hope you have a great week!

All About Me

Many teachers incorporate an "All About Me" unit in their classrooms, sometime in the first few weeks of each new school year. This really helps students and teachers get to know each better and share their unique personalities with each other. This song can be used for each student in a classroom. Students (and/or their parents) can help fill in the blanks to this song, and also practice spelling and reading their names. For students with delayed speech or non verbal students, their descriptions of themselves and what they like can be represented with a picture card so that they can participate in the song also.

I decided to use my own son as the example this time, so you can better hear how the song goes! He will be entering Kindergarten this fall and is so excited that this song is all about him!


© 2009 Amanda Ellis


What songs do you use for All About me units?

As always, if you have comments or questions, send me a quick email at morewithmusic@gmail.com

I love to hear from readers and enjoy your feedback!

Thanks for stopping by!

Motivating Mondays!

Everything seems to stay busy around here!
Work is steady (which I'm thankful and tired from at the same time), and the start of another school year is literally right around the corner. My son will start Kindergarten this year and we are in the midst of getting ready for the schedule change that goes along with a full school day for him.

As for blogging, I intend to daily or at least a couple times each week, but lately that has not been possible. I hope to get on a more regular schedule of posting as I get used to the new fall schedule.

I'm so excited to see 900 hits on my blog and eagerly look forward to posting more songs and ideas soon! I've also been guitar shopping and think I might have found "the one" for me at this point! I've also been learning my way around a recording program called Audacity. So, hopefully, I can post some better sounding tunes soon!

For today's Motivating Mondays post, I decided to share another website I actually stumbled upon over the weekend. It is called the Mosaic Project.

The Mosaic Project is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization that works toward a peaceful future by reaching children in their formative years. On their site, they feature songs about empathy, diversity, conflict resolution, and peace. Their music targets the 4th and 5th grade audience, but is hip and catchy enough to appeal to all ages.

I encourage you to check them out and listen to their songs!

Hope you have a great week!

Motivating Mondays!

Hello again!

I first wanted to apologize for my lack of posts lately. My posts have been few and far in between. I've been doing some traveling, attending a family wedding, enjoying the summer with my 5 1/2 yr old son, etc., but I hope to keep things rolling along at a more regular pace now.

Secondly, I wanted to say that I am SO excited that I have had 806 visitors to my blog so far! I never imagined there would be that many people interested in what I do or what I have to say! I don't receive alot of feedback or emails from my blog posts, but I will assume enough people are interested in reading them and carry on! :) If you have any questions or feedback on my songs feel free to email me at morewithmusic@gmail.com

It's almost Monday here in NC, so I will go ahead and post my Motivating Mondays blog.

When I was thinking about today's post, I asked myself, "What motivates me? What pushes me along? What inspires me to keep going?" My first answer, of course, was music. Big Surprise! :) Another answer that I came up with, was learning new skills that further add to what I already know and practice everyday.

So, today's post is about a website I ran across while surfing the web (what did we ever do without the world wide web???). The website is called Next Level Guitar and it is a teaching site for beginning to expert level guitarists-acoustic or electric guitar. The co-founders of this site are Tim Gilberg & David Taub. The website address is www.nextlevelguitar.com

I highly recommend it! When you visit this site, you will find a total of 150 FREE beginner guitar lessons plus an assortment of other free videos, written lessons, and chord videos. This site covers chords of all types and rhythm/strumming patterns for guitarists. I really found this site most helpful and the videos moved at an easy pace to follow and play along with the lessons. The instruction techniques are sure to improve any guitarist's playing skills!

I have a busy week ahead, but I hope to post a couple of songs using some of my new guitar tricks later in the week. Be sure to stop by!

Hope you have a wonderful week!





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