“Follow the News” is a fun song to connect students with news events in their community, their county, and the world. Simply look up current stories related to each of these areas. I use a Powerpoint or Keynote slideshow to highlight the lyrics and to provide visuals for each news event. For students who bring an iPad to their session, I can easily upload the current slideshow onto their iPad so they can follow along. When working with groups, I connect my computer to the large screen TV in the room and run the slideshow for the whole group to view. Assign a students to be in charge of changing the slides as the group sings together. At the end of the experience, I usually ask follow up questions about the news stories to check memory skills and basic comprehension. Using technology in this way like this really saves time. Since I incorporate this into many groups as a weekly experience, I only need to edit the slides for the different news items each week. Often I find I am learning about news events right along with my students!
Wade is a board-certified music therapist and one of the directors at Spectrum Creative Arts. He completed additional training programs in Orff-Schulwerk, Neurologic Music Therapy, and Performance Wellness. As a songwriter and creative writer, Wade has authored several music resource books for music therapy and music education.