Airplane (Photo credit: Biczzz)

I’ve talked about how much we love to use the Laurie Berkner Band’s songs during music therapy sessions. Today’s Friday favorite is another from the LBB titled “Airplane”. You can take a listen to the song and buy it here.

The idea for using this song as a gross motor movement intervention comes from my former internship supervisor, Sarah Woolever  MT-BC, M.M., NMT. There are a couple of ways to use this song to meet goals of working together and cooperation.

Here are the lyrics, which are repetitive enough to create a sense of anticipation but varied for using listening skills to follow the actions in the verses:

Get in your airplanes and off we go 
Going to the park is first, you know. 
Now slow it down and land on the ground 
And when you get out you’re gonna jump all around. 

…California…spin all around 
…New York City…gallop all around 
…playground…dance all around 

Get back in your airplanes, it’s time to go home 
Your family and friends are waiting you know 
Now slow it down and land on the ground 
And come sit down in your own hometown

For younger children such as toddlers, you will want to create one big circle and hold arms, swinging during the lyrics “get in the airplane off we go…”. Then follow the song lyrics by slowing the arm swinging down and “landing” on the ground by crouching. Everyone can drop hands and move like the lyrics each verse (e.g. spin) until the line “get back in the airplane”.

To adapt the intervention for older children, the music therapist can pair up pre-k or kindergarteners. Instruct the children to hold hands and hold arms out to “fly”. The children can hold hands for the duration of the song while acting out the lyrics in this adaptation.

Finally, younger elementary school age children can share a hula hoop as the “airplane”. You may want to engage in a bit of prep on how to have a safe body before passing out the hula hoops though, I speak from experience!

During this therapeutic music intervention, children will work together to move with a peer. In addition, having them in circle formation or in pairs encourages eye contact and conversation. We hope you can use this song as a resource for encouraging social skill building.
Happy weekend!.