While participating in a music and dance class with my son this month (with appropriate Covid procedures and only 4 children in the class!) I realized that the song we were dancing to would be PERFECT to use in therapy. Then my daughter’s class played ANOTHER great one. Guys, I think we should be picking the brains of dance teachers to find new therapy activities!
I decided to compile the best Fall/Halloween themed songs and videos for you, since they’re perfect for teletherapy/remote learning. The best part of these is that they’re all free on Youtube! Each is short enough for a fun activity at the end of a session, or able to be stretched and expanded upon to take up a large chunk of your therapy slot! The possibilities are endless.
Here are links to my favorites and what you can target:
Great for: following directions; concepts fast/slow, high/low, up/down
Activity: pause the song after each direction so students can have time to follow the direction
Great for: vocabulary; pretend play (imitate each character/costume); sequencing (use visuals and sequence as they appear in the story)
Activity: Print pictures of each costume in the song and make each picture “trick or treat” at the door
Great for: /s/ blends
Activity: See who can sing the lyrics with the fewest /s/ blend errors
Great for: verbs, expanding utterances, rhyming
Activity: describe what each character in the song is doing using verbs (e.g. eating) or use noun+verb+object phrases (e.g. “ghost eating toast”)
Great for: expected behaviors on Halloween, imitating actions, following directions
Activity: Have each student describe their favorite costume and dress up in it, describing how they’d dress themselves in it, trick or treat in it, how their character/costume would move, etc.
Great for: imitating actions, following directions, verbs, expanding utterances
Activity: Use noun+verb phrases to describe each action in the song: “monsters march”, “skeletons shake”, etc. How would your students’ costumes/characters move (if not represented in the song)