Timeless Tunesday: {A Sailor Went to Sea}
January 27, 2015
Monday Music & Movement: {Bumpity Dump Truck}
March 16, 2015

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If you have listened to the radio lately or watched the Superbowl last night, I’m sure you’ve heard this catchy song, Uptown Funk, by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. Now as a mom of a 9 and 5 yr old, I was bummed when I heard the swears in the song because the beat is SO CATCHY! Lukcily, in this youtube day and age, it’s incredibly easy to find clean lyric versions of most songs so I have been using Uptown Funk at home and at my sessions all of January 🙂

When I am working with teenagers in music therapy groups, whether they are high schoolers or at a transition program, I love to include movement. Not only does moving around get students’ brains primed for more attention based interventions later in the session, everyone at any ability can participate if the music therapist structures the movement intervention properly.

Sometimes we do line dances and other times it’s a big free for all with a fun song while using ribbon rings or scarves. Students are working on any number of goals: gross motor imitation, joint attention, generating an original idea, etc. whatever your classroom needs.

Here’s the clean version of Uptown Funk, I hope you have a blast using it with all ages of clients and students!

p.s. when the song gets quiet in the middle, I like to challenge everyone to dance small and try to get down low before getting back up with large movements again