We are more than halfway through summer, which feels unbelievable.

Weren’t we just celebrating the last day of school?!

Recently, I’ve been enjoying Hawaiian/summer/beach-themed sessions with my middle school students and teen clients. I always enjoy a good theme, and this one in particular makes me feel relaxed and happy.

Maybe it’s the colorful lei I’ve been wearing in these sessions, or my increased use of the ukulele, but there is something about a beach-themed session that puts me in a good mood.

Today I want to share with you two summer-y session ideas that have captured the attention of my clients (and even had one student exclaiming “I had a GREAT time!”)

Body Percussion to “Summer Vibes” –
Have you heard this song by Walk Off the Earth? If this doesn’t put you in a beachy mood, I don’t know what will!

This is the perfect summer song, and has been my go-to jam for my sessions with teens.

I’ve been using the Pegato remix for our work on auditory perception skills, and in particular auditory sequencing.

(What does that mean?!)

I created a movement pattern for the verses  (pat / pat / clap) and a movement pattern for the chorus (clap / clap / snap).

I then created a visual to show each of the movement sequences and pulled this up via screen share during my virtual sessions.

Everyone enrolled in Round 2 of the Elevate Email Idea Subscription (the Attention Package) will get the visuals I created for this and several other pop songs that can be used to work on auditory sequencing through movement patterns.

You can enroll here at any time (and earn 7 pre-approved CMTE credits):

Hula Dancing –
After singing a tropical vacation song where we pretend to put sunscreen on various body parts, we are ready to take a trip to Hawaii.

Since I am still 100% virtual, I knew it wouldn’t be easy to do this Hawaiian & Art experience that I’ve done in years past (in person).

Instead, I decided to teach very basic, somewhat modified hula dancing steps:

  1. Hands on hips and sway side to side
  2. Left arm horizontal across chest, right arm vertical and wave
  3. “Hula Hands” – move hands to the side of the body, and move up and down

These two musical experiences proved to be successful in not only offering an engaging experience that my clients were excited to participate in (win!), but one that gave them the chance to work on auditory perception skills (double win!).

Auditory perception skills are critical for success in the classroom and in social situations. When we can work on these skills in a way that’s engaging and fun, we’ve hit the jackpot!

You can get more ideas like this (for school-age and teen clients) straight to your inbox by signing up for Round 2 of the Elevate Email Idea Subscription (the Attention Package):

Bri Walstra, MT-BC had this to say about the Email Idea Subscription:

I thought the email portion was helpful! I actually really like the creativity worksheets because it forces me to sit down and think about the six ways to adapt one intervention. I think as music therapists we often get so busy and we read about intervention ideas but never figure out how we can implement them best.”

And Michelle Nettle, MT-BC, said this:

“I hope you keep creating more E-Books and CMTE online courses. I love all the ones you currently have available. You are great and your ideas and presentation are so creative and also easy to implement, as you do a great job of “breaking” all the interventions down. Thank you and please keep creating!”