Since our usual morning rush has lightened up significantly now that we’re staying home, I started incorporating a new practice into my girls’ routine.

Each morning, they choose a mindful card from our Mindful Kids pack.

It’s a pack of 50 cards with mindful activities for kindness, focus, and calm. The activities are short and simple, and the cards are bright and colorful.

I’m not an affiliate, I just really love and recommend these cards. I bought them at the National Music Therapy Conference last year and have gotten a lot of use out of them since then.

I started using these cards in my teletherapy music sessions as soon as we moved everything online.

I knew that my clients needed tools to de-stress and relax as much as I did.

Here’s how you can use these cards to promote relaxation with your school-age clients and teens:

Choose a mindful card that your clients or students would like, or one that targets a specific area of need for them.

Some are yoga and movement based, some are games to improve attention and focus, some are visualizations, and some are exercises to relax.

You can also choose one that goes along with the theme for your session, like Mind Castle, for a Frozen/princess theme. Or, my personal favorite, the Joyful Jellyfish, for an ocean theme.

As you read the card for your client or student, play relaxing music in the background. For my sessions, I play a slow, relaxing chord progression on piano or guitar. With my girls, I pull up recorded spa music.

You can scan and show the cards via screen share. Invite your clients to follow along, or they can just listen to you read the cards.

If you don’t want to purchase the cards, you can find simple scripts online, or you can create your own!

I’ve used these with ages 3 up through teens and they’ve been extremely effective. I love watching the clients close their eyes and get into the relaxation, and then have one eye open up ever so slightly, to see what everyone else is doing.

After completing these exercises, we discuss strategies for carrying over what we learned into our everyday lives.

It’s a nice way to end our sessions.

If you’re looking for more ideas to incorporate into your virtual music therapy sessions, remember:

Tuneful Teens 1 and Tuneful Teens 2 (which were just updated), Sensational Songs & Activities, Pop Song Mini Pack, and The Rap Pack For Teens (with 12 looped hip hop beats included) are all available at 50% off.

The Virtual Music Therapy Session Planning Pack has been flying off the E-Shelves (it’s also 50% off):

In the E-Book, you’ll learn creative musical experiences that are effective in teletherapy and easily customized for your clients.

You’ll learn: musical game ideas, instrument activities, and creative movement experiences; how to use listening guides; and some brand new ideas that I’ve created just for my virtual sessions.

Along with the E-Book, you’ll get: visuals, picture cards, a musical game template, sample listening guide, and sample mini musical bio, as well as a looped hip hop beat MP3.

It’s everything you need to implement the ideas in your virtual sessions right away! (And it’s just $9 until April 30th).