If you’re a preschool SLP, chances are, you base therapy off of themes being used in the classrooms you serve. One of the first themes a preschool classroom usually uses besides a “Back to School” theme is an “All About Me” theme.. which can include body parts and the 5 senses! One of the books I love for the “hearing” part of the 5 senses incorporates music and beloved farm animals: Old MacDonald Had a Band!
The Old MacDonald variation books are SO great for working on all kinds of sound imitation with your little ones!
For “Old MacDonald Had a Band,” there’s musical instrument sounds to imitate (ting ting, toot toot, boom boom, etc..) and you can also work on motor imitation by pretending to play the instruments. Pair this one with a musical instrument app that plays the instrument sound when you tap it!
I downloaded an app called Musical Instrument Flashcards. It’s free to download but if you want all the instruments, it’s 99 cents. You can have instruments in a field of 4 or 6, and can save instruments as your “favorites” so that you only have the instruments from the book available as choices when you play from your favorites list. You can choose to use real photos or clip art-type graphics, and choose if you want the voice label on or off.
Circle Time: A fun option I’ve found at circle time is to have some kids identify from the field of 4 based on what instrument is played on the page, but, since there’s only 7, that’s not enough for all of the kids. So, after going through the book, have a kiddo who didn’t get a turn yet, come up and choose an instrument to tap. (Make sure the “label”/voice option is turned off). See if anyone else can guess which one they picked! Go around and do this for the other kids who haven’t had a turn yet until everyone has had a turn tapping an instrument and hearing it play.
Do you have any of the Old MacDonald books? Which one is your favorite?
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