Learning Through Music and Movement

Music and Movement activities help to develop the large muscles of the body, help enhance creativity, and help to improve listening skills and concentration. You may want to try these activities with your student or child:

Follow the Leader --

This activity helps develop concentration. Play a recording of an instrumental song. Move around the room in different ways such as walking, tiptoeing, hopping, and twirling. Let you child observe you, follow your lead, and copy the movements. As your child becomes familiar with this game let them take the lead and you follow them!

Scarf Dance --

This activity nurtures your child's creativity. Give your child a scarf or a piece of cloth. Play a recording of a song and let your child wave the scarf to the rhythm of the music. Wave the scarf over your head and across your body crossing midline as often as you can.

Loud or Soft --

Your child will improve listening skills with this activity. Play a recording of a song loudly or softly. Tell your child to listen carefully to the song. When it is loud, he or she marches around the room. When the music is soft, he or she tiptoes around the room.

Mirrors Mirrors --

This fun activity helps your child improve concentration. Play a slow piece of music and have your child stand facing you. Move very slowly using a variety of arm and leg movements while your child copies you. Then let him or her make the movements while you mirror them.

Musical Instruments can also be used during movement activities. Instruments can be a motivating way to encourage grasp/release, bilateral integration, eye hand coordination, crossing midline, cause/effect skills, and basic motor imitation.

Jim Gill is one of my favorite artists. I have been using his songs in my practice for 10 years. Jim Gill has several CD's out and I must say they are wonderful to move to. The kids and the teachers love the upbeat songs and catchy lyrics. You can check out his website at http://www.jimgill.com/

Here is a list of my favorite:

Irrational Anthem

Toe Leg Knee

Hands are for Clapping

Alabama, Mississippi

List of Dances

Let's Dance Now

Poison Ivy

Leaky Umbrella

I love to use shakers with Alabama Mississippi. Here is the basic movement pattern I use with this song

Alabama - shake over head

Mississippi -- shake on knees

New Orleans -- shake side to side all the way to the floor (I like to have the kids bend their knees to work of quad. strength if unable to do this movement simply have them reach down as far as they can go.

Repeat pattern throughout the song

For my upper grade levels I have even brought in a map to show them where each of these states and city are located. From there you can open up discussions of how long it would take you get there, the climate, culture, etc.

I hope you enjoy these songs!!

Music and Literacy

Reading to children has proven to be essential for speech and language development. However, have you ever thought about singing a book to your child? Singing, is a natural activity for children and provides opportunities for them to build language fluency which can transfer to other aspects of their lives. Songs, like predictable books, help children link oral language to the written language through rhyme, rhythm and repetition. When songs become quickly memorized the music can be used as a structural prompt to reinforce the relationship between the songs text and the words in print. Over time, I will be sharing several of my favorite books to sing to my students on this blog. Some of the books will be songs that have been turned into books and books that can easily be turned into songs. Some of my favorite books to use in the Springtime are as follows:


What a Wonderful World -- Weiss and Thiele


Little White Duck - Whippo-Zaritzky-Paley


Ten Little Ladybugs - - Melanie Gerth


Easter Parade - Irving Berlin

I'm Not Perfect

As promised, here is the very first activity for Melodic Approaches. I debated and debated over what should be the first music strategy. As a perfectionist I get caught up in “trying” to make everything just right before I try something new or allowing someone to hear a song I’ve been working on or even creating my session plans. Well life isn’t perfect and no matter how hard I try, neither am I. I have also learned over the years that opportunities fly by if you never put yourself out there and try. The premise of this blog is to share my thoughts and strategies that are working for the students I work with. I do not claim to be a top expert in my field or a professional grammy award winning performer. (My “recording studio” is in our craft room and I sing into my daughters karaoke machine.) I am merely just a music therapist who happens to have a passion for teaching others how to use music to help our kiddos reach their full potential.

During my music therapy sessions this week we have been talking about how each one of us is given talents and how each of us are different in our own way. The students helped devise a list of their talents and things they are good at. We then discussed things that are hard or challenging for them and made a list. I made sure the list of strengths were much longer than the list of weaknesses than we talked about how everybody struggles with something sometime. When we finished our discussion we sang the following song, I’m not Perfect by Laurie Berkner. Laurie is one of my all time favorite children's’ song writers. I have been using her songs during music therapy since 2001 and tell all my friends when I grow up I want to be her! You can only imagine how excited I was last year when I was able to see her in concert! I did bring my children and 2 year old nephew so I wouldn’t look out of place.

I'm not perfect.

No I'm not.

I'm not perfect, but I've got what I got.

I do my very best.

I do my very best.

I do my very best each day.

I'm not perfect but I hope you like me anyway.

You're no perfect.

No, you're not.

You're not perfect,

But you've got what you got.

You do your very best, you do your very best.

You do your very best each day.

You're not perfect

But you know I like you anyway.

Cause, we're not perfect.

Oh no we're not.

We're not perfect.

But we got what we got.

We do our very best, we do our very best

We do our very best each day.

We're not perfect.

But I hope you like us anyway.

About Me

Hi!! My name is Shae Keeley and I am a Board Certified Music Therapist working for the public school system in DFW area.  I am hoping to start a Blog for music therapists, special education educators, parents, and music lovers. Music when used correctly can be a wonderful teaching tool and will reach individuals when words cannot. It has been proven time and time again that music can help foster learning by providing for the child a safe, fun, repetitive learning environment.


I am excited about sharing my ideas with anyone who would like them. I would like to thank Rachel Rambach, MM, MT-BC for the inspiration for this blog. You have to check out her blog at http://www.listenlearnmusic.com/ She has been helpful in getting this idea off the ground.



Shae Keeley, MT-BC