Happy New Year!

Things have turned chilly here in Pennsylvania. We have a snow storm on it’s way at the end of this weekend, which means my kiddos will inevitably have a snow day on Monday!

‘Tis the season of an erratic school schedule.

Nonetheless, I have big plans for later on in January – the Tune in To Teens and Attention & Perception E-Courses will be re-opened for enrollment!

So excited to be able to offer these popular courses again.

Leading up to the re-open launch, I’ll be doing a Session Idea Blast for Tweens & Teens by sharing some new ideas I’ve been implementing in my sessions recently.

The new year is the perfect time to gather and implement some fresh ideas, am I right?

Today, I’m sharing about a Musical Game called Music Man (a spin off of Hangman).

It’s as simple as this – choose a singer, band, song title, or song lyrics, and that will be what your students or clients need to guess.

Just as in regular Hangman, you’ll write on a wipe off board one blank line for each letter of the singer’s name, song title, etc.

Students can be in groups and guess letters until they can solve the Music Man puzzle and figure out the singer’s name, song title, etc.

(Check out the Tuneful Teens E-Book to see what I have students do if they guess the wrong letter, i.e. one that isn’t part of the singer’s name or song title!)

If they correctly solve the puzzle, we’ll then sing the song that they guessed and I’ll find a way to make it therapeutic based on those clients’ goals.

For example, if the song lyrics were “Baby now we got bad blood” by Taylor Swift, we might do a two-part movement pattern to the song.

If the band was Imagine Dragons, we might do instrument playing with cues.

This experience is awesome because tweens and teens LOVE it and are EXCITED about it, which means you have instant engagement.

But, you are working on social communication skills and expressive language, as students work together to solve the puzzle.

And, you can sprinkle in work on lots of other goals and objectives when you use the song therapeutically after the puzzle has been solved.

Tween/Teen engagement + work on therapeutic goals = WIN WIN.

If these ideas are sparking your interest, then you’ll be glad to know that the doors for the Tune In To Teens E-Course and The Attention & Perception E-Course will be opening on January 13th (at a discounted rate and for a limited time).

The session ideas and content in the courses are all geared toward school-age (K-8) and high school-age clients with disabilities, but can easily be adapted for other ages and clinical populations.

Each E-Course has three packages to choose from, ranging from 5-15 continuing education credits that are pre-approved with the Certification Board for Music Therapists (CBMT).

Sarah Jarvis, a music therapy intern, had this to say about The Attention & Perception course:

“Would I recommend the course to others? Oh, absolutely. Your voice is easy to listen to, your videos are excellently edited, and your material is succinct and straightforward. For someone with ADD, this was AWESOME and so simple to stay attentive. The edited videos of client interventions seamlessly fit into the instruction videos. It made it so easy to mentally jump from what a therapist can do to use this information and these techniques. Thank you for making it a fun learning experience!”

And John Kneip, MT-BC, shared this with me about Tune in To Teens:

“I think this was the most organized and clearly presented online music therapy course I have ever taken. Thank you for so much for the valuable and useful information. I really appreciated the amount of specific, practical, and useful ideas.”

More than 400 music therapists, educators, and professionals have taken Wholesome Harmonies E-Courses and successfully put the ideas into use in their sessions and classrooms.

Stay tuned when they open for enrollment at a discounted rate and for a limited time next week!