Today's post will wrap up Sing Your Heart Out week! Each day this week, I shared a new song that you can use in your music therapy sessions or music classes. Day 1: It is Time to Sing a Song ~ a song for building communication skills Day 2: I Am An Elephant ~ a [...]
Visual Stimulation Today's song will continue my series on Sense-ational Activities, those that target the five senses. I use this song when I am facilitating visual tracking goals and providing visual stimulation to my clients with severe and profound intellectual disability. Initially, I used this song in UCP's sensory room, which has a tube with water and bubbles that light [...]
Sing your heart out week continues!! Here is a song I use during my instrument playing activities, particularly those involving the xylophone and glockenspiel. I take out the 'B' and 'F' bars and the song fits perfectly. Also, the song lyrics can be individualized for different children using different instruments, for example "Danny plays the drum!" [...]
This song is a crowd favorite for the children I work with! They love, love, love pretending to be animals. So, I wrote this song to allow them to be a quite large one - the elephant. Each verse of the song has them move a certain way like an elephant does. Have a listen... [...]
This week I am on vacation from my job as a music therapist at UCP's Early Beginnings Academy. Yay! But, I'm not off from my work at Wholesome Harmonies! So, I decided this would be a great opportunity to share some new songs with you! Each day this week I will share a new song, [...]
One of my favorite session activities is using color-coded notation to teach children how to play xylophone, piano, and hand bells. Here is a video of two children I see for individual music therapy using color-coded notation to play the xylophone (or as my nephew calls it, the "ex-lophone :)). I didn't need to give them much [...]
When I come up with new activities for my sessions at UCP's Early Beginnings Academy, I often consult the teacher's lesson plans. Not only do they give me lots of great ideas for new song topics, but it ensures that my sessions are directly lining up with and supporting the classroom curriculum. This week, some [...]
The Miami Music Therapists have been very active lately. We've jammed together, sung at Open Mic Night, and swapped songs and resources. Last Friday, we had another get-together: we gathered as a book club to discuss the very popular "Sing You Home" by Jodi Picoult. This was a great opportunity for us to discuss our thoughts on the book and [...]
I was recently contacted by the editor of Specialneeds.com, an online resource for parents of children with special needs. The editor asked if I would take part in Autism Awareness Month by writing an article about music therapy and autism. I was more than happy to do this! This topic is near and dear to [...]
Auditory Stimulation In honor of the beginning of Spring (although it always feels like Spring in Miami!) I'm continuing my series on Sense-ational Activities. Sense-ational activities are those that target the five senses. I've shared activities that provide olfactory stimulation, tactile stimulation, and multisensory stimulation. Today's post will focus on an activity I use to provide auditory stimulation. [...]
