New On-Line Sprouting Melodies Course begins Wednesday, July 9, 2014.

It is not too late to register  and learn in a supportive group of peers on your own time, in your own home. 23 CMTE hours.

Happy Independence Day! Here are Sprouting Melodies, we value the education and experience you bring to young children and their families.  We trust you to use your skills to independently create the best music experiences for your community. Join this fast growing early childhood program specifically for music therapists.

Come visit us at https://raisingharmony.com/training/ to register or for more information.

We say that Christmas is a time for children…but then we tell them to wait and not touch.

How frustrating this must be!  But as adults we know that delayed gratification and persistence are important skills for later learning.  Here is a fun Christmas song to sing and play with your little ones that makes a game of waiting while teaching simple ways to manage the excitement of the season. [Read more…]

Many of the children and some of the parents came to my school last night dressed in pajamas and carrying a pillow, stuffed animal and their favorite book. It was the annual Friday night pajama party celebrating a weeklong event known as ‘Parents as Reading Partners’ or PARP.  During the week, the families pledged to read every day to their child. Each title was recorded on a paper heart, and sent back to school. By last night, the front lobby walls were crammed with hearts- a testament to the dedication and concern of our parents.  [Read more…]

We finally got around to planting our vegetable garden today, and I couldn’t help thinking again about the relationship between growing plants and growing children. My grandparents were farmers, and probably their parents were farmers.  Growing up, my family always had a vegetable garden, and now I have my own. As I sat there in the warm dirt this morning, I felt the presence of all those ancestors who undoubtedly sat, just like me, in a plot of humid earth with a young seedling in hand. [Read more…]

The music therapists of Raising Harmony™ and Sprouting Melodies® are so grateful to all the MOMs who believe enough in the importance of music in their children’s lives that they pack, and carry and drive and unload and climb and shuffle in order to get to music group each week.  We are committed to supporting you in your journey through motherhood. [Read more…]

Thursday, May 9 is National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

[Read more…]

When I was younger, I would look in envy at the magazine and newspaper articles about travel and dream of the day when I would jet off to new cities, new experiences and new cultures.  Well, now that I am older, part of that dream has come true. I have been fortunate in the past few years to be invited to share my thoughts and music on early childhood and development across this country and sometimes outside of the country.  [Read more…]

One of the best parts of being a music therapist is the shared sense of commitment and passion in the music therapy community.  I have the honor to travel to many of the national and regional conferences of the American Music Therapy Association and share the early childhood music therapy information and vision of Raising Harmony and Sprouting Melodies.  The latest gathering came in the beautiful and awesome area of southern Arizona.  The conference center for the meeting is an intricate collection of walkways, gardens, and stucco buildings designed by a student of the famed architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.  Every aspect of Wright’s design is deliberate and detailed with the mission of reflecting and respecting the natural environment while providing for simplicity in function and form.

[Read more…]