On this blog post and on episode 43 of the Music For Kiddos Podcast, we wanted to give you a glimpse of what happens behind-the-scenes of the Music For Kiddos Symposium.

As a music therapist and music educator, I use props as an aid to reinforce or support movements, concepts, skills, exploration, imagination and our student’s or client’s creativity in the music space with my preschool and kindergarteners. In this post, I’m sharing some of my favorite fall props for early childhood music time.

Narwhals and Waterfalls is a Kindie Rock band that consists of singer-songwriters Paige Bell and Adrien Palmer. Both teachers in Dallas, Texas, they connected in 2018 over their passion to write creative, original songs to help their students and kids everywhere with social and emotional learning.

We don’t have to stand up to engage in meaningful movement. We can dance, move our bodies and have fun while sitting or even lying down. That’s why I’m sharing my sitting movement song with you— Move To The Beat.

Today, we are ending this series with our keynote speaker, the absolutely incredible queen of children's music, Laurie Berkner. She has a hundred million or more views between YouTube and streams on Spotify and all of the other streaming services.

I love movement props for my preschool and kindergarten music groups. One of my favorite movement props? Hands down, the Stretchy Band. The stretchy band is exactly that, a big band that is flexible, stretchy and made with elastic and a soft, colorful fabric. The Stretchy Band is machine washable, making super easy to keep it clean!

This week, we’ve had the pleasure to interview Hakeem Leonard and Kerry Devlin, two music therapists who I respect and admire. You might know them from Instagram and if you don’t, I recommend you follow their accounts: Hakeem @musicallman and Kerry @liberatedlearning.

Peek A Boo, my peekaboo song, is perfect to use online or in-person with scarves. If the kids are online, you can have kids use any kind of scarf, blanket or t-shirt that they can use to cover their faces. During virtual session, you can cover use your scarf to play “peekaboo” with your camera!

I hope that you have been enjoying this Music For Kiddos Symposium Presenters’ series we have been doing on the blog and on the Music For Kiddos Podcast. We are interviewing each and everyone of the speakers leading up to November 12th, 2021, when the Music For Kiddos Symposium is taking place. If you missed the previous interviews, so far we’ve had the opportunity to talk with Franklin Willis, Kaiti Shelton & Rich Abante Moats, who are wonderful music therapists and music educators who you should know. This time, we got to interview some of my favorite people in the whole entire world. We get to hear from Lori Kubicek and Kimberly Khare who are my personal mentors and two people I love so much.

Grizzly Bear Grump is a sensory-based movement song. It helps kids explore feelings of anger and frustration, and then it gives them specific sensory tools to help them self-regulate.