Today we are wrapping up the Music Therapy in Action series with some of my most favorite videos – our Special Performances and Events!

I worked for seven years at United Community Options of Miami, facilitating music therapy for children with autism and related disabilities. During that time, my interns and I prepared many different types of performances for families and donors.

We helped the children perform several different shows, complete with an original script, songs, and dance moves.

One was a Halloween-themed show called “In the Woods,”; another was our spin on the classic “Little Red Riding Hood”; and another was a performance of The Nutcracker.

My interns and I also prepared the music for two Halloween special events:

I composed an original music score to go along with the book “Nightsong” by Ari Berk. The children listened to the story with the musical accompaniment.

Elevate Subscribers who signed up for the Holidays and Themes Package received the “Nightsong” score and instructions so they can use this in their Halloween-themed sessions this month.

I also composed a music score to go along with a reading of the book “Big Pumpkin” by Erica Silverman. This one is SO much fun!

I love looking back on these pictures and videos and see the children shine.

If you are looking for more ways to infuse creativity and fun into your music classes and therapy sessions, check out the Elevate Email Idea Subscription:

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“Halloween-themed attention & perception training exercises.”

Kind of a mouthful, isn’t it?

That’a just a fancy way of saying that we’re going to use Halloween songs to work on attention and perception skills (like listening and following directions).

Here’s an idea that can be used with clients of all ages:

Play a spooky Halloween song (either a live or recorded version) and instruct your clients to play their instrument and listen for a key word or phrase. When they hear it, they should ______________ (you fill in the blank!)

For example: Play the “Ghostbusters Theme Song” (everyone will be jamming – clients, teachers, and therapists alike!) Clients will play a rhythm instrument and listen for the word “Ghostbusters” in the song.  Every time they hear that word, they should switch instruments with the person next to them.

Another example: Play the “Monster Mash” (another favorite that will have everyone tapping their toes!) Clients will wave their scarves and listen for the phrase “monster mash” in the song. Every time they hear that phrase, they should wave their scarves up high in the air.

This gives clients the opportunity to work on:

• Selective attention – They have to tune out everything else going on in the song and in their classroom to hear that specific word or phrase
• Listening & direction following – There’s a lot to follow! They’ll need to remember what word or phrase they’re listening for, and what to do when they hear that word or phrase
• Impulse control – They’ll have to wait until they hear the word or phrase before they can switch instruments or shake up high (or whatever other instructions you gave them!)

That’s a lot packed into a simple Halloween musical experience, right?

If you need more Halloween-themed interventions, click here to visit the Holidays & Seasons Session Planning Page and scroll down to October.

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I prepared a spooky music listening session for my school-age kiddos this week and I’m EXCITED about it!

My goals for the students in these classes are:

• To improve auditory perception skills (ie. listening skills)
• To improve sustained attention
• And, to practice using adjectives (one of the goals shared by their teachers)

These goals, paired with the fact that Halloween is coming up, led me to create a spooky music listening session for the students.

We started off with The Halloween Rhythm Repeat (you can get a PDF of this musical experience sent straight to your inbox!) as a warm up to work on listening skills and sustained attention.

Following that, we listened to three pieces of music, took part in some listening activities, and filled out a listening sheet that I created. Out of all the spooky sounding classical music out there (and there is a LOT), I narrowed it down to three pieces:

Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” (you know it from Fantasia)

Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in d minor” (think creepy organ music)

Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” (the students knew it from Mickey’s Halloween)

Here’s the plan for each musical selection:

1. Listen to the music – no writing, no watching, just listening.
2. Listening Activity – Examples include: True or False (where I shared four statements about the piece or composer and the students told me if they thought those statements were true or false) and Let’s Vote (where I paused the music to see if they could identify the instrument being played).
3. Watch video of a live performance of the piece. Each classroom has a laptop and Promethean board so I pulled the music up on YouTube. This was especially neat for “Toccata and Fugue,” as the students were VERY intrigued by the organ!
4. Listening Sheet – Finally, each student answered questions on their Listening Sheet. The last question prompted them to circle the musical elements that make a piece sound “spooky” (minor mode, sudden dynamic changes, etc.) and compared them with the musical elements that make a piece sound “happy.”

Have you ever done a music listening activity for Halloween? I would love to hear what music you used and how you facilitated the activity. Leave a comment below to let us know!

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Halloween is right around the corner!

I’ve been using The Costume Rap in my sessions this month and it’s been a hit.

I use this musical experience to work on verbal and non-verbal communication skills with my tween and teen clients.

Many of you have mentioned that it’s tough to come up with musical experiences for groups of clients with mixed abilities. The Costume Rap meets many needs in that clients can use words or a voice output device to participate. Plus, it’s a rap which will up the “cool factor!”

Now, onto another session idea I created for tweens and teens. I call it Halloween Rhythm Combos.

This musical experience involves rhythm sticks, imitation and Halloween phrases.

I’m using this musical experience to give my clients the chance to work on verbal communication, articulation, attention, impulse control, and motor skills. It works well with a group or in an individual session. AND, it has multiple levels of participation, so if you have groups with clients of mixed abilities it will be perfect for you.

Sounds like something you’d be interested in?

Click here to grab a PDF of how to facilitate the Halloween Rhythm Combos musical experience and put it into practice this week:

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Halloween is right around the corner and there is a hint of Fall in the air (yipee!). Here in Miami that just means the humidity has dropped slightly, but I’ll take it!

Come on over and grab some free Halloween intervention ideas here and then check out this new idea I came up with:

It’s called the Costume Rap. Here’s how it goes:

Lyrics:
On Halloween, I’m gonna dress real cool,
Gonna wear a costume, so don’t be fooled!
On Halloween, I’m gonna dress as ____________.

Here’s how I implemented this intervention:

1. Set a hip hop beat (or rap track as I love to call them!) to play on your iPod.
2. Go around to each group member and prompt them to fill in the blank: “On Halloween I’m gonna dress as ______________.” Use a microphone if available! For clients who don’t use words to communicate, record their answer on a voice output device and prompt them to activate it on their turn.
3. Variation: If you don’t have the equipment to play a hip hop beat, simply set a beat on your keyboard OR use a drum to create your own beat!

This is a simple intervention, but the tweens and teens in my groups loved it!

The main goal is to work on expressive communication skills and the clients loved sharing about their costume and why it was important to them. (Let me tell you, I learned a LOT about Spiderman, Batman and minions!)

As I mentioned in the instructions, this intervention is also a great way to work on non-verbal communication skills through use of a voice output device.

Many of you have mentioned the challenge of coming up with interventions for teen clients towards the severe end of the autism spectrum or for groups with clients of mixed abilities. For my groups, we were able to use this intervention so that all clients could participate and feel successful!

If you want to learn more about creating meaningful and engaging interventions that your teen clients will LOVE, check out Tune In To Teens: Creative Ideas for Connection & Music Therapy Session Planning.

Check out everything the course has to offer right here:

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Halloween is approaching and I don’t know about you, but I am loving coming up with my session plans this month.

If you’ve read my blog posts in the past, you know I love a good themed session plan.

Halloween is especially fun because there are so many interesting characters to incorporate (witches, ghosts, and goblins), themes to create songs about (costumes, trick-or-treating, and pumpkins) and so many ways you can address sensory needs (using cobwebs, glow in the dark lanterns, and my favorite – those cinnamon scented broom sticks!)

If you’re in need of some new Halloween intervention ideas for your sessions with kids and teens, check out the following posts:

“Cause This is Thriller!” Halloween Session Ideas for Teens: Here you’ll learn about a musical song/story using the book “Inside a House That is Haunted” and a movement activity to MJ’s “Thriller” (this one is always a crowd favorite!)

Halloween is Coming…Are You Ready for Some Sensory Ideas? In this post I share some sensory ideas to work on visual tracking and provide tactile stimulation. These interventions incorporate floating ghosts, glowing lanterns and spooky cobwebs…oh my!

It’s Fall Ya’ll: Halloween Theme: Here you’ll learn how to create a Halloween-themed session and see a list of some of my favorite spooky books to use for book ‘n song activities.

It’s Fall Ya’ll: Halloween Books & Ideas: In this post, see how I use the book “We’re Off to Find the Witch’s House” paired with instruments to work on attention, impulse control and expressive language.

There you have it! Now let’s get session planning!

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It’s no secret that I love Fall and I love Halloween.

I find that there’s something about the season and holidays that sparks my creativity for planning new ideas.

Since I lead many sessions at our local library branches, I’m always looking for books to incorporate into my sessions.

Here are links to videos where I composed music to go along with the books: “Nightsong” and “Big Pumpkin.”

See the image above for more books that pair nicely with a song or instrumental music. (“We’re Going on a Ghost Hunt” is super cute!)

“We’re Off to Find the Witch’s House” is another great book I found this year. It’s a story about some children going trick-or-treating and the spooky friends they meet along the way.

I paired an instrument with each spooky character. For example, we used the canary stick to represent the owl, the clatterpillar to represent the skeleton, the sand blocks to represent the mummy’s shuffling feet, and the thunder tube to represent Frankenstein.

We also used the drum to represent knocking on the door when the trick-or-treaters arrived at the witch’s house.

This book is great for working on attention, impulse control and expressive language. There is a phrase that repeats throughout the book, “We’re going to the witch’s house, but we’re not afraid.” I prompted the children to repeat the phrase “But we’re not afraid.”

This allowed them to work towards their goal of increasing expressive language by speaking a 3-4 word utterance.

That’s all for now!

I hope you’re enjoying your Halloween sessions as much as I am.

Leave any book recommendations in the comment section below. I’d love to add some new books to my list!

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My favorite season is upon us: Fall!

The past few days here in Miami have been beautiful. The temperatures have cooled to the low 80s (ha!) and there’s been a nice breeze blowing throughout the day.

I’ll take what I can get!

Despite the warm temps, I love to bring as much of the seasonal holidays into my music therapy sessions.

I don’t know about you, but I love using themes to help inspire me to create new ideas. (My E-Book Sensational Songs & Activities is full of themed session plans!)

For the month of September, the theme for my music therapy sessions was apples.

This month, the theme is Halloween and I couldn’t be more excited about that!

Here are some of the musical experiences I included in my Halloween-themed sessions for the month of October:

– Halloween books: For my preschool sessions I wrote songs to go with “On a Windy Night” by Nancy Raines Day and “We’re Off to Find the Witch’s House” by Richard Krieb. For my baby and toddler sessions I wrote a song to go with the ever popular “Five Little Pumpkins.”

– Scarves: I handed out scarves from a jack-o-lantern (one of the plastic ones you use to go trick-or-treating). Then we pretended scarves were ghosts and moved them quickly and slowly depending on the tempo of the song (an original I wrote right on the spot during a session called “I’m a Ghost and I Say Boo!”)

– Pass the Pumpkin Song: We passed around a real pumpkin. When the music stopped we named the person who was holding the pumpkin!

– Spooky Sounds: I created a song story about different spooky sounds you hear on Halloween. Various instruments like the cabasa, vibraslap and kokoriko help create these sounds. (Check out Sensational Songs & Activities for the sheet music!)

– Fall Scents: We smelled Fall scents like apples, cinnamon, and pumpkin while I sang an original song about those scents.

*Here’s a fun little tip: Set your keyboard to the organ sound for some of the songs, and play your “usually major” songs in minor. It will instantly give them a spooky, Halloween-y feel. 

I hope you’re enjoying Fall as much as I am. Stay tuned for more themed session ideas – I’m inspired!

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I have to say that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays!

Although it’s usually still pretty hot and sticky here in Miami, I always enjoy singing songs about pumpkins, ghosts, and goblins.

Last year I shared two videos of special Halloween singable stories: “Big Pumpkin” and “Nightsong” (these were a little different than my usual singable stories, but the children were completely enthralled!)

Check out the videos and see if you could put these into practice in your sessions….especially for those of you running sessions at libraries!

Today I want to share some Halloween session ideas that I use with my “sensory-based” classes (those that include children with severe/profound intellectual disability and those with autism spectrum disorder).

– The singable stories listed above! They are great for sensory stimulation and you can incorporate lots of different instruments to go along with the stories.

– Flying Ghosts: I have little ghost decorations that I use for visual tracking with these clients. I sing my original “Ghost” song (with the keyboard ‘voice’ set to organ to add a spooky feel!) and ask the teachers or assistants to make the little ghosts fly slowly back and forth in front of the child’s face. The idea is to encourage visual tracking.

– Light Up Pumpkins: I have a pumpkin from Target that has a light inside. So I dim (or turn off) the lights and turn on the pumpkin light so it glows from inside. I sing my original  “Glowing Pumpkin” song and instruct the children to pass the pumpkin around the circle. You could also use this activity to work on visual tracking again!

– Feel Inside the Pumpkin: I purchased a pumpkin typically used for trick-or-treating (because it has an open top). I stuff it with cotton to act as “cobwebs” and place all kinds of spooky Halloween things inside (little plastic spiders, etc.) I sing my original “Feel the Cobwebs” song and instruct the children to pass the pumpkin around the circle. Each one has the opportunity to reach their hand in (if they’re brave enough!) and feel the items inside.

What are YOUR favorite sensory Halloween Activities? Leave a comment below to let us know!

Looking for more creative sensory based ideas for your session? Look no further!

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We started off the week with a Book ‘n Song: “Nightsong,” a beautiful story about a bat going off into the world to find his way (watch the video to see!)

If you would like the musical “score” I composed to go along with this story, jump on the email list below. I will be sending out a PDF of the sheet music to all my subscribers very soon!

Later in the week, the staff and I shared another special treat with the children: a dramatic performance of the story “Big Pumpkin” by Erica Silverman. This story is a classic!

I composed the musical “score” for this by reading through the story and trying to mimic what was happening in the storyline musically (kind of what we do in our music therapy sessions, right?)

Each character has their own theme. Watch and see (and listen!)

This was SO much fun to put together and the children were totally and completely engaged.

I would love to hear from you. What books could YOU add a musical accompaniment to? Leave a comment below…

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