Growing up, I always loved writing.
In particular, I used to write a lot of poetry and always loved seeing how I could make things rhyme and flow.
Little did I know that skill would serve me very well in my music therapy work with tweens and teens!
I recently started working at a school in Miami called Children’s Resources Educational Center that provides services for school age children with autism and other special needs.
I love working in an academic setting, because just like when I was employed at UCP Miami, a large focus during our sessions is on concepts the children are learning in the classroom.
Already, I’ve written songs about math concepts, letter sounds and most recently a rap about….wait for it…common and proper nouns.
Yep. A rap about nouns.
I decided to go the “rap route” because this was for the third, fourth and fifth grade classes. I wanted to make sure that the song I created didn’t sound too “childish” for them.
Right away, I thought of using a hip hop beat I created on GarageBand.
I jotted down the important concepts, created rhyming lyrics and set it to one of the beats. Here’s what I came up with:
In addition to this, I created a visual that I could point to as I went through the rap so the most important concepts were highlighted visually as well as aurally.
If you’re a subscriber to the Wholesome Harmonies mailing list, you’re in luck, because I’ll be sending out an MP3 of The Noun Rap, along with the hip hop beat and lyric sheet to all subscribers this week! You can sign up right here for free.
Even if you’re not working on this specific concept with your clients, I thought it would be beneficial to share the general idea just to get your creative juices flowing.
Hip hop beats are super easy and fun to create and they instantly bump up the “coolness” factor of the intervention (at least that’s the feedback I’ve gotten from my tween and teen clients :)
If you want to learn how to create your own looped hip hop beats and how to use them therapeutically in a variety of different ways, check out Tune In To Teens: Creative Ideas for Connection & Music Therapy Session Planning.
That’s just one of the many things you’ll learn in the CMTE course as I assist you in creating meaningful, engaging interventions that your teen clients will love.
Check out everything the course has to offer right here:
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