I recently had to move all my instruments and materials from the therapy center where I’ve worked for three years and move it back home. The therapy center was closing its doors and my materials needed a new home. This move allowed me to take inventory of everything I own and reminded me of a [...]
The ink has barely dried on my Beach Themed blog posts and already I'm realizing people are posting first day of school pics of their kids. That can only mean one thing - it's back to school time! Looks like it's time to shift gears. I'm excited, though, because at the end of August I'll be [...]
I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to put my summer session plans away just yet! I love using my uke and singing about relaxing days at the beach. There are so many creative ways to design sensory, cognitive, and movement activities around a beach theme (click here to check out some of those [...]
In last week's blog post, I shared about how I'm using any summer "down time" I can find to get a head start on session planning for the Fall. If you're in the same frame of mine I am and are need of some musical experiences that address academic concepts with kids, you're in luck! Below is [...]
Friendship Circle is one of my favorite programs to work with. It is an incredible organization that provides services for children and teens with autism, as well as the opportunity for them to make friends and work on social skills in a supportive environment. I work with Friendship Circle by providing group music therapy services for [...]
Today is the final post for my video series on Music Therapy + Cognition. I've had so much fun putting these videos together! You can catch up on the past posts and videos here: Part 1: Using the clarinet to work on localization Part 2: Using rhythm instruments to work on auditory perception skills Today [...]
I'll admit firsthand that I've been a little hesitant to incorporate improvisation into my sessions. I never knew quite where to start or how to musically support my clients. Also, my clients (who are mostly on the autism spectrum) need a lot of structure, so I didn't know how they would handle the "musical freedom," [...]
Happy Holiday season! I'm so happy to be writing this post with the lights from our Christmas tree twinkling next to me. While brainstorming new ideas for my sessions with young children, I came up with this simple little song about Santa. It's an echo song and the melody is repetitive, so kids will be [...]
I intended to write this blog post last week (ie. before Thanksgiving), but sometimes when you're working from home with a 1 1/2 year old, things don't always go as planned, am I right? So here we are a few days post-Turkey day and I want to share some of the songs and musical experiences I've [...]
I just got back from taking Brooke, my little one, to story time and our local library and let me tell you, she loves it! Now that she's one, everything is more fun. She's getting into the movements of each song and she's very observant of the librarians when they read. I lead baby and toddler developmental music classes at library [...]
