I intended to write this blog post last week (ie. before Thanksgiving), but sometimes when you’re working from home with a 1 1/2 year old, things don’t always go as planned, am I right?
So here we are a few days post-Turkey day and I want to share some of the songs and musical experiences I’ve been doing this month.
I started my “It’s Fall Ya’ll” theme in September by sharing my apple-themed session ideas and continued in October with my pumpkin & Halloween-themed session ideas.
For today’s blog post, the final one in the “It’s Fall Ya’ll” series, I’ll be sharing my Thanksgiving and turkey-themed ideas.
All are goal-oriented music experiences and I find that having a theme really helps spark my creativity!
– Fall Harvest Book: I wrote a song to the book “From Seed to Pumpkin” by Wendy Pfeffer. This is a wonderful book about how a seed goes from being planted in the ground to growing into a pumpkin. I created my own lyrics (rather than using the words in the book) and added movements for each of the steps: planting the seed, the rain coming down, the sun shining, the leaves growing and the pumpkins growing. This was a crowd favorite for sure!
– Turkey Songs. Lots of Turkey Songs: We danced like turkeys, gobbled like turkeys, flapped our wings like turkeys and did everything you can think of that was turkey-related. The children also had the opportunity to play the turkey-gobbler, canary stick and duck quacker (from West Music), which all created very authentic turkey sounds.
– Thankful Songs: We sang a song where each child filled in a line about what they’re thankful for. I brought in pictures (of family, pets, siblings, toys, teachers, etc.) so children who were nonverbal could point to what they were thankful for. Next year I would love to have each child bring in pictures of their own family, friends, pets or teachers to show who and what they are thankful for!
– Native American Drumming: I brought in Native American drumming music and passed around a drum so each child could play along with the music.
– Thanksgiving Food Song: I couldn’t get away with not including a song about favorite Thanksgiving foods! The children loved to share their favorite foods and desserts that they were looking forward to eating on Thanksgiving.
And that’s about it!
I love Thanksgiving and really enjoyed facilitating sessions for children who are just starting to understand the concept of being “thankful” and “grateful” for the things in their lives.
They also looked super cute flapping around and gobbling like a turkeys!
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