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As the arrival of summer is upon us and the school year is coming to a close, I have been reminiscing about some of our school group’s favorite music therapy activites. Today’s Music and Movement Monday was a huge hit in our inclusion preschool classrooms, and is a great way to work on a variety of goal areas such as identifying up, down, high, middle, low, improving palmar grasping and gross motor movement, musical knowledge skills of fast and slow, and working together with peers. For this activity, I have the students stand in a circle while holding the stretchy band.  I like to sing the song live to give plenty of time to reinforce up, down, high, low, and middle. Here is a link for the tune!

Oh the grand old Duke of York, He had 10,000 men (move stretchy band in small up and down motions near the stomach)

He marched them up to the top of the hill–march march march march march up (move stretchy band up until it is above the head)

And he marched them down again–march march march march march down (move stretchy band until it is down by the feet)

And when they were up they were up (hold band up high)

And when they were down they were down (hold band down low)

And when they were only half way up (hold band by stomach)

They were neither up (hold up high) nor down (hold down low)

One of the reasons I love the stretchy band is that promotes working together for kids of all abilities. Kids can hold on with one hand, two hands, or use velcro bracelets to assist with palmar grasping. You can also adapt this song for participants that are sitting in a circle. For upward motions hold it above the head, middle is around the chest, and down in resting on the knees. To mix up the activity, we practice moving slowly, or for more of a challenge them, slowly increase the speed each time you sing it.