My favorite season is upon us: Fall!

The past few days here in Miami have been beautiful. The temperatures have cooled to the low 80s (ha!) and there’s been a nice breeze blowing throughout the day.

I’ll take what I can get!

Despite the warm temps, I love to bring as much of the seasonal holidays into my music therapy sessions.

I don’t know about you, but I love using themes to help inspire me to create new ideas. (My E-Book Sensational Songs & Activities is full of themed session plans!)

For the month of September, the theme for my music therapy sessions was apples.

This month, the theme is Halloween and I couldn’t be more excited about that!

Here are some of the musical experiences I included in my Halloween-themed sessions for the month of October:

– Halloween books: For my preschool sessions I wrote songs to go with “On a Windy Night” by Nancy Raines Day and “We’re Off to Find the Witch’s House” by Richard Krieb. For my baby and toddler sessions I wrote a song to go with the ever popular “Five Little Pumpkins.”

– Scarves: I handed out scarves from a jack-o-lantern (one of the plastic ones you use to go trick-or-treating). Then we pretended scarves were ghosts and moved them quickly and slowly depending on the tempo of the song (an original I wrote right on the spot during a session called “I’m a Ghost and I Say Boo!”)

– Pass the Pumpkin Song: We passed around a real pumpkin. When the music stopped we named the person who was holding the pumpkin!

– Spooky Sounds: I created a song story about different spooky sounds you hear on Halloween. Various instruments like the cabasa, vibraslap and kokoriko help create these sounds. (Check out Sensational Songs & Activities for the sheet music!)

– Fall Scents: We smelled Fall scents like apples, cinnamon, and pumpkin while I sang an original song about those scents.

*Here’s a fun little tip: Set your keyboard to the organ sound for some of the songs, and play your “usually major” songs in minor. It will instantly give them a spooky, Halloween-y feel. 

I hope you’re enjoying Fall as much as I am. Stay tuned for more themed session ideas – I’m inspired!