“Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes… head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes”…are you up and moving yet?!
Getting your students up and MOVING even during teletherapy has so many amazing benefits! First, more than anything it is FUN! Besides that, kids should be moving and getting exercise daily-especially our virtual learners that may not be getting as much exercise. Finally, using common songs like this that many children already know or will learn to know gives the opportunity for so many different language development activities. Many songs encourage students to follow directions (like Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes). If you use fill in the blank type songs or songs with repeated phrases, it can help students increase their expressive language. In addition, using sound loaded songs helps students to work on their sound carryover. So, for your next teletherapy session-incorporate a song to help with language development! Here are 2 of my favorites for getting students up and moving during teletherapy- Shake Break Action Songs and Lulu’s Shake Break. Over in my facebook group, Preschool Speech-Language Pathologists, we talked all about some of our favorite songs to use for teletherapy and language development, especially for students in Preschool with Autism. Let’s look at the list of our favorite songs for teletherapy that help with language development:
FAVORITE SONGS FOR TELETHERAPY FOR YOUNGER STUDENTS:
(Many of these songs can fall into more than one category or even all categories for sure! )
For Movement:
Walking Walking (Super Simple Songs)
Penguin Dance (Same creator as baby shark)
For Following Directions:
If You’re a Kid… (There are so many different versions of this to go with holidays and such!)
If You’re Happy and You Know It
One Little Finger (by Super Simple Songs)
Let’s Go to the Zoo (Super SImple Songs)
For Helping with Expressive Language:
Now that you have a list of awesome songs to try during teletherapy that will help with your students’ language development, I have two amazing Youtube tips to share with you when you go to play these songs!
Youtube Tip #1:
Use the spacebar on your computer to pause & play videos on YouTube! No more fumbling for the mouse and getting it on the right spot and accidentally switching the video etc. Just start and stop the video almost exactly where you want to do some verbal or action fill-in responses!!! Just make sure you are actively in that window that you are playing the video in, meaning you have mouse-clicked in it before trying to pause the video. I work with a second monitor and do some documentation at times or get another tab ready to go, and sometimes juggling what’s active throws me off!
Youtube Tip #2:
I just learned this so maybe you already know this one but it was exciting to me! To get rid of ads on a Youtube video (because who wants to waste time with those?!), if you put an extra period after the dot com in youtube.com then the ads magically go away!!!! I seriously did not believe that this would work but I have tried it multiple times and it does! I used this trick when linking all of the above videos. Enjoy!
What are some of your favorite songs that help with language development? What age are your students?
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My new favorite is “Ten Elves in the Bed” Lots of language, reverse counting (how many left?), labeling nouns (toys Santa brings), positions “in the bed” and “on the floor”. My students love it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_d-c75_RVA&list=RD0_d-c75_RVA&start_radio=1
Thank you for all you do and share!
Susan
These are awesome tips. Thank you you for your energy and ability to multitask to us. May I share this list on my web page? I lost my old web page – yes it disappeared and so had to recreate everything and am just finishing it up!
Hi, Jenna!
I am currently a college student studying speech-language pathology! I think this advice is awesome for tele-therapy! I am doing online school now, and I know I could sometimes use some singing breaks! It is also interesting how these songs can help with their language development. You said that the use of Head, Shoulder, Knees, and Toes is helpful because it has the child follow instructions, which I would think is receptive language and expressive language practice? I would also think that using such common songs makes it easier for the child to be able to not think so much about what they are saying, but how they are saying it. It’s awesome how we can work on such important things in fun ways! Thanks for sharing!!