Transportation Vowel Sounds

Transportation Vowel Sounds

Today I just want to share a song that I used quite frequently in music therapy sessions with students working towards speech goals. A large number of the students I worked with in the school district were working on goals in this area.  I often pull songs from a set of books from Prelude Music Therapy, which has a variety of songs composed by several music therapists who had specific music therapy goals in mind. I find that these songs are not only great in music therapy sessions, but also when singing with or teaching concepts to my own children.  There are songs for cognition, movement, social skills, receptive and expressive language, and more. 

This particular song here called I was Riding on a School Bus, helps to practice vowel sounds by vocalizing sounds that we use when describing the sounds of transportation.  For example, we sing "choo choo" for trains, "ee-oo" for fire trucks, and "toot toot" for boats.  These sounds are paired with consonants here however, when working with students, my main focus is to emphasize the vowels.  In my examples here, I'm singing with my 1 year old as he explores his transportation puzzle.  In a music therapy session, I would sing it slower and put more focus on the vowels.  Hopefully though, this example will suffice for learning the tune and idea.  I did change a few words here and there to fit our needs. 

If you need a break from singing, The Wheels on the Bus, you might like this one!