Music therapist and music educator Katie Pistilli joins us on episode 26 of the Music For Kiddos Podcast. She specializes in ukulele and specifically, ukulele education.

Ukulele resources are so vital. In fact. our bestselling course at Music For Kiddos is our beginning ukulele course: Ukulele For Kiddos.

These top 5 children’s songs are the songs that over the last four years have been the ones that people tell us are their go-to songs and honestly, the ones that the children they work with love the most.

What was the last year like for you as a music therapist or music educator?

I’m sure many of us can say that in some way or another, the last 16 months or so have been challenging, to say the least. This week on the Music For Kiddos Podcast, I sat down with three of my colleagues, who are also part of the Music For Kiddos Community, to talk about their experiences as music therapists and educators navigating through a pandemic.

Many movement songs can also help kids with transitions, and in the classroom, transitions can look like moving between locations, activities, or going to or from a center. Instead of just using our words when asking children to stop one activity and move to the other, we can use music to prepare children to start a different task, to promote self-regulation and to calmly transition to something new.

Burnout is an epidemic among music therapists and music educators and I think it's something that there's a lot of shame around. As someone who has experienced burnout three times, I experienced a lot of shame about burnout but have really grown to realize that I just didn't have the tools that I needed to get through some of the aspects that were causing the burnout for me.

I'm going to walk you through these different episodes of burnout that I had because they were all very different and maybe one of them will sound somewhat familiar to you.

Throughout the years, I was able to develop a step-by-step system to facilitate early childhood music groups and in episode 22 of the Music For Kiddos Podcast, I want to share with you how I functionally use lesson plans in the preschool classroom, and go how I from idea to implementation.

Need a fun, catchy song for your early childhood music groups this summer? “Watermelon, Watermelon” is one of our favorite children’s songs that kids (and educators) LOVE!

What do medical music therapists do? How do music therapists use music for procedural support?

To answer these questions and more, we sat down with music therapist Amy Love of Pediatric Music Therapy to talk about the work she does as a music therapist working in a medical setting.

If you are looking for a list of valuable, educational, affordable or even free workshops and professional development opportunities for early childhood and elementary music teachers, you’ve come to the right place.

What do you do when you run out of ideas? As a music therapist or music educator, I’m sure you can relate to this. We look for inspiration for our lesson plans. We gather ideas for new songs we want to write for our clients. We search for intervention ideas for music therapy sessions.

I will admit: I have this kind of constant fear that I'm going to run out of ideas.