Narwhals and Waterfalls is a Kindie Rock band that consists of singer-songwriters Paige Bell and Adrien Palmer. Both teachers in Dallas, Texas, they connected in 2018 over their passion to write creative, original songs to help their students and kids everywhere with social and emotional learning.

We don’t have to stand up to engage in meaningful movement. We can dance, move our bodies and have fun while sitting or even lying down. That’s why I’m sharing my sitting movement song with you— Move To The Beat.

Today, we are ending this series with our keynote speaker, the absolutely incredible queen of children's music, Laurie Berkner. She has a hundred million or more views between YouTube and streams on Spotify and all of the other streaming services.

I love movement props for my preschool and kindergarten music groups. One of my favorite movement props? Hands down, the Stretchy Band. The stretchy band is exactly that, a big band that is flexible, stretchy and made with elastic and a soft, colorful fabric. The Stretchy Band is machine washable, making super easy to keep it clean!

This week, we’ve had the pleasure to interview Hakeem Leonard and Kerry Devlin, two music therapists who I respect and admire. You might know them from Instagram and if you don’t, I recommend you follow their accounts: Hakeem @musicallman and Kerry @liberatedlearning.

Peek A Boo, my peekaboo song, is perfect to use online or in-person with scarves. If the kids are online, you can have kids use any kind of scarf, blanket or t-shirt that they can use to cover their faces. During virtual session, you can cover use your scarf to play “peekaboo” with your camera!

I hope that you have been enjoying this Music For Kiddos Symposium Presenters’ series we have been doing on the blog and on the Music For Kiddos Podcast. We are interviewing each and everyone of the speakers leading up to November 12th, 2021, when the Music For Kiddos Symposium is taking place. If you missed the previous interviews, so far we’ve had the opportunity to talk with Franklin Willis, Kaiti Shelton & Rich Abante Moats, who are wonderful music therapists and music educators who you should know. This time, we got to interview some of my favorite people in the whole entire world. We get to hear from Lori Kubicek and Kimberly Khare who are my personal mentors and two people I love so much.

Grizzly Bear Grump is a sensory-based movement song. It helps kids explore feelings of anger and frustration, and then it gives them specific sensory tools to help them self-regulate.

Rita Antonia Abante Moats, MA, MT-BC or most commonly called “Rich,” has been a board-certified music therapist for 13 years. Rich has primarily worked in the medical setting since becoming a board-certified music therapist in the United States. Her initial passion was in pediatric music therapy - working with children diagnosed with cancer, other life limiting illnesses, as well as the neonatal intensive care unit. Since then, Rich has worked with children and adults in the hospital, both in individual and group settings, from Med-Surg, ICU, Neuro, Cardiac, Psych, and Rehab.

Bitty Bitty Bat, it's a MAJOR favorite song of kids, music teachers and music therapists alike. With this song, kids can pretend they're an itty bitty bat (with teeny, tiny wings) and then in the middle part ("I'm flying...") they can fly with BIG wings. As the song goes on, they go back and forth between flying (big wings) and being a bitty bitty bat (little wings).