How do we make clean-up time more fun and engaging? We sing a clean up song.

“Clean Up” songs can be deemed as transitional songs, which are songs that help kids move from one activity or setting to another. Sometimes, children (and even adults!) might need some motivation to clean up, at home or in the classroom, and a motivating clean-up song might just be what we need to reinforce and encourage that activity.

Stacey is a singer songwriter and performer for children and families, as well as an early childhood music specialist in the Metro West Boston area. After the birth of her first child, Stacey started to write songs inspired by her journey of motherhood and later on, merged both her career as an educator and her passion for music to write and perform engaging and educational songs for kids.

Do you also LOVE to use props in your music classes or music therapy sessions?

Today I’m sharing some of my favorite props to use in my music classes and I will also be sharing some uses of props in music education and music therapy.

Music therapist and music educator Katie Pistilli joins us on episode 26 of the Music For Kiddos Podcast. She specializes in ukulele and specifically, ukulele education.

Ukulele resources are so vital. In fact. our bestselling course at Music For Kiddos is our beginning ukulele course: Ukulele For Kiddos.

These top 5 children’s songs are the songs that over the last four years have been the ones that people tell us are their go-to songs and honestly, the ones that the children they work with love the most.

What was the last year like for you as a music therapist or music educator?

I’m sure many of us can say that in some way or another, the last 16 months or so have been challenging, to say the least. This week on the Music For Kiddos Podcast, I sat down with three of my colleagues, who are also part of the Music For Kiddos Community, to talk about their experiences as music therapists and educators navigating through a pandemic.

Many movement songs can also help kids with transitions, and in the classroom, transitions can look like moving between locations, activities, or going to or from a center. Instead of just using our words when asking children to stop one activity and move to the other, we can use music to prepare children to start a different task, to promote self-regulation and to calmly transition to something new.

Burnout is an epidemic among music therapists and music educators and I think it's something that there's a lot of shame around. As someone who has experienced burnout three times, I experienced a lot of shame about burnout but have really grown to realize that I just didn't have the tools that I needed to get through some of the aspects that were causing the burnout for me.

I'm going to walk you through these different episodes of burnout that I had because they were all very different and maybe one of them will sound somewhat familiar to you.

Throughout the years, I was able to develop a step-by-step system to facilitate early childhood music groups and in episode 22 of the Music For Kiddos Podcast, I want to share with you how I functionally use lesson plans in the preschool classroom, and go how I from idea to implementation.

Need a fun, catchy song for your early childhood music groups this summer? “Watermelon, Watermelon” is one of our favorite children’s songs that kids (and educators) LOVE!