I learned about this wonderful set of CD’s created by music therapist and educator, Margie La Bella, when she submitted them and won a PAL Award. According to her website, “Her CD series Move! Sing! Play Along and Learn! is a collection of original participation-based songs and dances designed to spark the imagination, playfulness, and language learning (expressive, receptive, and auditory/listening) of children. It is available to parents, grandparents, teachers, special education centers, therapists, music/dance/gym instructors and all those who are young at heart.” Margie loves music for the joy it gave her growing up and has a passion to share that with every child, with and without learning challenges. She has intentionally written and performed songs, rhythms and sounds to build specific skills for language learning. Here is my review of her PAL Award winning CD’s:
The “Move! Sing! Play Along and Learn!” CD series is a treat for parent and child or teacher and class. Margie La Bella’s pleasant, soothing voice is easy to understand as she gently encourages kids to listen and learn through music. As a music therapist and special educator, she has written and produced lively entertaining songs for all kids introducing them to pop, jazz, folk, rap, swing, reggae and world music styles. This helps kids appreciate and understand music. It could also be the step which leads them to find the best scale search to learn more and turning music into a career. The first CD in the series, “Move!” focuses on building receptive language skills as kids follow directions to “rub your tummy until the music stops,” follow the “Multi-Step Blues,” or learn concepts in the “Opposite Jam.” Move on to “Sing!” and enjoy vocal play and expressive language as kids learn to follow fun syllables that lead to a song about Mister Monkey or the Leeway Train with related actions to match the rhythm. The “Play!” CD builds auditory discrimination and processing as kids move to the sounds of rhythm instruments and their homemade band–imitating and learning soft/loud, slow/fast, matching movements to representative musical patterns and instruments. Raise your arms up and down to the slide whistle, or stamp your feet to the drum as sounds and directions are combined to build memory. Finally, “Mixing it Up!” combines the lessons learned and gets kids moving, singing and playing because now “I’ve Got the Music In Me.” “Body Rap” is one of my favorites as, “I saw my hands and they started to clap, I thought of my nose and my face started humming, my whole body started to move and my shoulders got in the groove” as movements are added while matched to a body part and rhythmic phrase. So gather the kids around to move to the music and maybe in the middle of all the fun, we’ll produce some good little listeners.
**** Note: If you are a speech language pathologist, OT, PT, or special educator and would like to use one of Margie’s CD’s with your students to share a review on your blog, contact Margie at her website below.
Available at musictherapytunes.com
The CD’s were provided for review by Mustictherapytunes.com
