As April is winding down, so is the school year here at University of Miami (UM), where I’ve been teaching this past school year.

It has been an incredible year and I have learned so, so much!

I’m looking forward to the coming months, where I have a few major life changes coming down the line….

Even with all the changes happening, I’ve still been keeping up with my private practice clients and generating lots of new ideas that I can share with you here on the blog!

One new idea I came up with one the spot in a dyad session a few weeks ago is called Musical Hide & Seek.

My goals were to facilitate interaction and communication between two siblings; they both loved my stuffed toy frog…and thus Musical Hide & Seek was created.

Here’s how this intervention works:

–  One child is the ‘hider.’ One child is the ‘seeker.’ The ‘seeker’ closes his eyes as the ‘hider’ sneaks around the room and tries to find the best hiding place for the stuffed toy frog. As he is finding a place to hide the frog, I will mimic what he’s doing musically on the guitar (maybe a boom chuck in minor if he’s tip toeing around; or I will strum through a chord progression while counting backwards from 10 to 1).

– Once the frog is hidden, I’ll sing through an original song “Where is the Frog Hiding?”

– Following that, I’ll give the ‘hider’ a shaker and tell him to watch as his sister tries to find the frog. When she is far away from where the frog is hidden, shake slowly and softly. But as she gets closer to where the frog is hidden, start to shake faster and louder. This will let her know she’s getting closer to finding the frog!

– After the instructions have been given, the ‘seeker’ will walk around the room and try to find the frog. I encourage the ‘seeker’ to really listen to the shaker and what her brother is trying to tell her by shaking in different ways. Meanwhile, I will use my guitar strumming to match how the shaker is shaking.

– Once the ‘seeker’ finds the frog, we sing through “Where is the Frog Hiding?” and insert spatial concepts (ie. “the frog is under the table” or “next to the chair”).

This was a huge hit during this sibling dyad session!

They were playing a ‘game’ while working on skills like nonverbal communication, auditory discrimination. and knowledge of spatial concepts.

You can try this out during your group sessions as well!

Now I would love to hear from YOU! What musical games do you incorporate into your sessions? Leave a comment below to let us know!

 

 

Image courtesy of Kittikun Atsawintarangkul / FreeDigitalPhotos.net