In preparation for Earth Day, my girls and I have been jamming to “The 3 Rs” by Jack Johnson ALL week. (My little one asked me to put it on repeat!)

So today I wanted to share how I’ve been celebrating Earth Day in the music therapy sessions I’ve facilitated this week:

We started off with a Mini Musical Bio/Guess Who Game to learn about our featured artist of the week: Jack Johnson (you can learn about this musical experience in the Virtual Music Therapy Session Planning Pack for Spring).

Next, we sang “The 3 R’s” (such a catchy song!) and discussed ways we can reduce, reuse, and recycle. I used the visuals below, and some additional ones that allowed students to drag pictures of recyclable items into a recycling bin:

Then, we listened to the beautiful song “My Own Two Hands” by Ben Harper & Jack Johnson, and discussed the ways we can help our Earth. Again, I had interactive visuals where students could drag pictures of the things they can do the help the Earth (pick up trash, turn off lights, plant seeds, etc.) onto a picture of two large, open hands.

Following that, we sang “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands,” but changed the lyrics to “We’ve got the whole world in our hands.” For each of the following verses, we added our favorite animals and things in nature that we want to protect. For example, “We’ve got the trees and the flowers in our hands.”

To end the session on an upbeat note, we danced to “Wake Up America” by Miley Cyrus.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself – I got to play Jack Johnson songs all week AND help my students learn how to care for our Earth through music – I truly have the best job in the world.