Before I launch into today’s blog post, I want to give a huge THANK YOU to those of you who took the “better blog survey” I sent out.
Sara Devine was the winner randomly chosen to receive a free E-Book – The Rap Pack for Teens!
I appreciate your survey responses so much and have read and recorded each one so I can reference them when I’m creating new content on the blog.
Ok, now ~ Part 3 of my series on how to AMP UP your teen sessions is here!
You can catch up on Part 1 (how to use “Best Day of My Life” to facilitate a song discussion) here and catch up on Part 2 (to learn about my game called the ABCs of Music) here.
Today I want to share how I use hip hop and rap beats to facilitate a movement experience for teens.
This musical experience involving movement combos incorporates imitation and sequencing and targets gross motor movement, sustained attention, and memory.
Here’s how I facilitate this experience with my teen groups:
First, I set a pre-made hip hop or rap beat (I use one of these beats that I created – Track 1 & Track 5 are my faves).
Then, I demonstrate a 2-beat movement (for example, “clap clap”) and the group repeats it back to me (“clap clap”).
Next, I do that same 2-beat movement and add another 2-beat movement (for example “clap clap, stomp stomp”) and they repeat both of those movements back to me (“clap clap, stomp stomp”).
I then add another 2-beat movement to the end of that movement group (for example “clap clap, stomp stomp, fist pump fist pump”) and they repeat that back to me (“clap clap, stomp stomp, fist pump fist pump”).
I continue adding movements until there are too many to remember!
It’s really fun to see how many movement patterns we can do (even I start to forget them if I don’t have them written down!)
You can also change up this experience by going around and having each group member add on a movement pattern one by one.
If you want to hear samples of each track I use for this experience, click on the blue button below. You can grab the bundle of 5 Bonus Rap Tracks and use them for movement experiences and tons of other music therapy interventions (including rapping – check out the Rap Pack for Teens for more details!)
I hope this inspires you to try incorporating some hip hop or rap beats into your movement experiences.
Leave a comment below and let us know!
I like this idea! I have a hard time finding movement experiences for my teens…. I do a movement experience with my teens where I have cards that represent different movements (I have a lot of folks who are non-verbal) and everyone chooses a movement and I put the cards in order on a board so everyone can see them. Then I play a song (or I could use one of the rap pack beats!) and we do each movement 8 times in order and keep repeating the sequence until the song is done. This would be a great next step for some of my classes! Thanks for sharing!
Awesome Liz!! I share a very similar creative movement idea in Tuneful Teens 2! I love finding new movement ideas for my teen groups :)