How are you feeling about back to school this year?

Throughout the last couple of weeks, I’ve been fortunate to connect with a couple of music educators and music therapists over on Instagram. Most of us feel a mix of emotions, including uncertainty, as we approach the start of a new school year.

Maybe you’re currently prepping to go back-to-school. Maybe you’re planning your preschool or kindergarten music lesson plans on a weekend. Perhaps you’re a music therapist looking for songs or ideas for your next music therapy session. Whatever you’re doing right now or however you found this blog post, know that this blog post was created to serve as a one-stop source of the music therapy and music education ideas, free songs & resources that we have available here on our website, MusicForKiddos.com.

Transitions can be difficult for young kids, and I think it may be because when we're moving from activity to activity or from place to place, a child may be in the middle of something and may not have gotten quite enough advanced notice that a transition or change is happening. A song can really them prepare and go through that change successfully. Of course, we’d still want to give them as much advanced notice as we could, but a song can also serve as that gentle reminder & “timer” before they transition to something else.

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.