Implementing Songs (post 1)

Thanks for stopping by!
As promised in my last post (you can find it here),  I'm posting implementation ideas for songs from my album "All things Winter".  I have used all of the songs in this album this year and have enjoyed trying out new ways to implement then and adapt them as well.

"What I wear in the Snow" is a song I wrote to compliment the book, The Jacket I Wear in the Snow by Shirley Neitzel.  This book is a great book about winter clothing and is also a good one to read for sequencing objects as well.


One way to implement this song is to have real examples or visuals of the articles of clothing for winter and go over (label) them  first.  You can also say "show me the hat" or "show me the scarf" and show the visuals (being mindful to limit the field of choices for students that need less choices when needed).  You can also create a power point or Smart Notebook presentation to serve as visuals that the students will be able to see.
Next, you can sing the beginning of the song, "Here are the things I wear in the snow.  Show me where they go." and explain that we will be showing where each item goes on our bodies.  If you have a visual made of a body and separate pictures for the articles of clothing, the students can take turns bringing each picture up and placing it where they think it goes.  In many of the classrooms I work in, we first label the articles of clothing and then as I'm singing, we touch where we place each one (i.e. hat-touch head, scarf-touch neck, etc.).
I want to note that I don't always sing all of the articles of clothing in this song.  With certain groups I select certain articles that the students are learning to label and we start there (again-limiting the field of choices). Later we add additional items.
For students that are nonverbal or need assistance via a voice output device, you can program a device called a step by step (ahead of time), to say each article of clothing or a sentence for each article (i.e. "I wear a hat on my head.", "I wear a scarf around my neck.").
I hope these ideas are helpful and lead you to create your own creative ideas!
Stay tuned for more ideas!

All things Winter

Welcome back to More with Music!

Today I'm excited to share not just a song, but an entire album for all things winter!

I am in the process of bundling numerous singles into albums, so please bear with me.  I decided to start with a winter album since that is our current season and many of us across the country are experiencing winter weather this week.

All things Winter includes songs about dressing for the weather, polar bears and snowmen.  There's something in this album for everyone!

You can look forward to future posts featuring songs from this album with ideas for implementing them into your classes and/or sessions.  If you have any comments or questions, I'd love to hear from you below!



Stay warm and have a great weekend!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!
I hope all of you had a restful break and a Merry Christmas.
It's a new year and I can't wait to see what 2016 has in store for all of us!
I'm hitting the ground running and getting a blog post up before I head back to work tomorrow morning.

Today's song share is a simple one.  A teacher I work with requested that I come up with a song to help her students observe the rule that clothes, socks and shoes remain on during the school day.  She was getting tired of verbally redirecting the students and thought a song would be more effective as a reminder.   (She has a creative bunch this year...they may be little, but a couple of them are streakers, there are a handful of shoe launchers and a few of the others really like to go barefoot.)  :)

So, in light of all this potential energy on a day to day basis, I decided to keep it simple and write a piggyback song.  I recorded new lyrics to the tune of "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes".  This way, we can still incorporate the actions of touching each lyric mentioned in the song as we sing it.  (And you can't really do the action of touching your shirt, pants, etc.. if you don't keep them on ;).  As you'll hear in the song below, I start out slower and gradually increase the speed each time.  Kids love to go faster so I thought this would help keep their attention also.



I'm excited to see how the kids react to this song, (and if it helps them keep their clothes on at school!) :)

As always, thanks for stopping by and reading my blog posts.  I hope they are helpful to you in one way or another.