Regardless of whether your clients are doing homeschooling, distance learning, or in-person learning, we can all agree that this school year is going to look different than what we’re used to.

While sitting outside in the backyard watching my girls play and thinking about this, a song about this topic just came to me.

I furiously wrote and wrote, and within minutes the song – called “This School year Will Look a Little Different”- was complete.

I used the song yesterday in a music therapy session with teens and it was incredibly effective.

Take a listen and see if it would be useful in your sessions with children or teens as we begin the new school year:

We sang through the song as an echo song, with the lyrics pulled up using Zoom screen share. We did a pat and clap pattern throughout the song.

After singing, we made a list (using the white board feature on Zoom!) of all the things that would be different this school year. For example, school is online, or we’ll need to wear masks if we’re doing in-person learning.

And, we made a list of all the things that would remain the same this school year: math, reading, art, music, seeing friends (even if online).

Then, we talked through each of the three steps in the song and how we can follow those steps to have an awesome school year, regardless of how different things are right now.