Music For Kiddos Podcast
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Have you met Franklin Willis?
If you are on Instagram and you are a music educator or a music therapist, you know who Franklin Willis is. He is a leader, author, an educator, public speaker and music education coach. I first got introduced to Franklin a when he was interviewed by our Empowering Little Leaders course instructors Kerry Devlin, Zoe Levine and Naomi Davis on Instagram. I remember so clearly, Franklin talking about how the kids were his focus, and his avenue to really care for kids was music.
Franklin uses a lot of music and movement with kids. He does these structured, group improvisations that take and celebrate child's input and incorporates it into what you're doing.
We are so fortunate to have him on episode 36 of the Music For Kiddos Podcast and cannot wait to learn from him as one of our speakers for this year’s Music For Kiddos Symposium.
We interviewed Franklin Willis on the Music For Kiddos Podcast, and here are some of the highlights:
“Movement is something that comes so natural to some folks and then for others, it is such a drag. So, I'm gonna try to talk about some easy ways that we can make movement very accessible for our youngest of learners and finding ways where we can interact with our children, and just have fun with making moves and dancing and just having a great time.”
Franklin continues: “When we think about movement, we think that we have to be like ‘Dancing With The Stars’, like we gotta be able to move all graceful. But one thing I learned about with children is, they don't care about any of that. They are going to move how they feel. They're going to jump, they're going to slide, they're going to do all of the things.
I’ve embraced that even with my older students and I ask them ‘Hey, how does this music make you move? What movement goes with this word?’, especially when I am getting students to like be creative.
If we're learning a song and I need to add movement, I ask the children ‘What is this? How does this make you feel? ‘or, ‘What do you want to see when you move with this lyric?’, and I'm telling you, nine times out of ten they can create something so much better than whatever Mr. Willis came up with originally. And the next thing you know, your students have created a very organic, fun movement piece.”
The important piece of the puzzle? Ownership. “You're not begging them to move. They're doing it freely. I'm giving our students the autonomy to choose and to move in the way that they see fit. I think is something that we can all add to our teacher toolbox.”
Tune in to episode 36 of the Music For Kiddos Podcast to listen to Franklin Willis’ step-by-step use of movement in the music classroom.
Mark your calendars on November 12th, 2021 for the Music For Kiddos Symposium!
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