[Julia Park]

Susan, I am so proud of you! Way to go. I pray that you find your voice through this and hope your future business will take off and help many children and families. There are some cmte courses about starting your own music therapy practices. musictherapyed.com offers some courses online. Cathy Knoll offers a course called “You’re the Boss” and I really liked it. http://musicworkspublications.com/courses/youre-the-boss/

I really want to add my own style and voice to the early childhood music therapy services through my practice. I am going to first sit down and create my own business strategies and my own songs using the knowledge I’ve gained about children’s developmental stages. What this training helped me the most is learning about the reasons WHY we sing or play certain songs. Each song matches with particular developmental stages and as a music therapists, we can educate the parents both music and non-musical developmental stages of their children.

[Julia Park]

Great ideas Susan. Talk about Music Therapy Advocacy!

I am planning to do free try-out classes at local churches. I think this would invite a lot of parents and children. This would also allow me to practice my skills before I actually charge people. I want to incorporate a lot of new songs and learnings that I’ve gained from here so I am very excited. Having flyers at early childhood intervention programs and children’s hospitals would be also great idea as well as creating e-newsletter.

[Julia Park]

I am looking forward to becoming an early childhood music specialist. This is very exciting step into my career. Thank you for this opportunity.

I am carefully considering to become the Sprouting Melodies Provider. I reviewed PDF and wanted clarify some questions regarding the cost. In order to become Sprouting Melodies provider, you have to pay $100 for membership annually (Individual SM Provider), $100 additionally if you do not make more than $100 for royalty, and professional liability insurance? How much is the liability insurance usually? and do I get to keep 100% of what I will be making from my business? Thank you in advance.

[Julia Park]

I think remembering how to incorporate the element of “Fun” in the group has been successful. I did a lot of hands on activities with the children in my groups where children would sometimes make mistakes on rhythms, but we all just laugh it off and do it again together. In that process, the parents would watch the children and laugh along with them. I felt that parents seeing their children actually having fun meant a lot to them because not only they are learning but they are also having fun and loving the experience. It is important to have the specific goals and agenda but also to create the atmosphere that it is okay to make mistakes.

[Julia Park]

5 words to describe SM3: Active, Push and Pull, Personality, Emotions, Intentional

5 words to describe FS:Support, Sharing, BUSY, Helping, Connections

Plan for SM3:
1. Gathering/Greeting: Place instruments in the middle of the room while everyone sits in the middle of the room. Encourage the children to go pick out their instruments. Therapist then sings the “Sit down with me” and encourage the children to return to their place where their caregivers are sitting. Parents pat their knees while children sing and play instruments.
2. Bonding Song: Sing “Swimming Together” with everyone by swaying side by side.
3. Songs about me: Start patting the knees and when everyone is doing it, start chanting “Where is the music”.
4. Instrument Song: The therapist goes around the room and sing “You plan a little”.
5. Movement Song: Give different colors of the scarfs to children as she sings and models the movement to song, “The leaves go down”.
6. Good Bye: Sing “Music time is over” while doing the sign language “over”.

Plan for FS:
1. Gathering/Greeting: Sing “Hey everybody” while patting the knees with everyone.
2. Bonding Song: Sing “Hold on Tight”. Encourage the parents to have infants or toddlers on their laps or sit in front of them to hold them tight.
3. Songs about Me: Sing “All of this is me” Sing slow the first time and then vary the speed for fun to entertain the older children.
4. Instrument Song: The therapist plays the piano to accompany the children playing maracas and sing the song with the family.
5. Movement Song: Encourage the children and parents grab maracas or drum to sing to “I can move around”.
6. Goodbye Song: Give scarves to older children to wave while singing to “It’s time to say goodbye”.

[Julia Park]

I agree with Susan, can Meredith or Elizabeth explain this more in detail. I don’t remember talking about this topic from the videos. Thank you

[Julia Park]

Music for development is meeting where the person is. Music therapists have knowledge in human development and they create the music experience according to that. The focus is on the person’s developmental level instead of the music. Music for skill building can be interpreted in different ways but how I see it is that music for skill building focuses on enhancing the musical skill set. For an example, a child is taking a piano lesson in order to build their piano skill set. The focus on learning the skill, not on the person.

[Julia Park]

The major challenge in working with multi-age groups is in how to integrate the different developmental levels of young children from age 0-5. Once the baby is old enough to walk, it is extremely difficult for one parent to manage one child alone. I am curious how the music therapist can appropriately meet everyone’s needs since even the language and communication levels are different. I can empathize with Nicole on her experience working with children from age 2-8. I agree with Susan that you will definitely need to have more options for types of instruments to meet developmental levels of different age groups.

[Julia Park]

Use 5 words to describe the music experience in Sprouting Melodies 2:
Exploration, Energy, Playful, Surprise, Spontaneous

Write 5 sentences you can use when speaking with parents about musical responses for children in SM 2:
Your babies are entering into the independence stage meaning they can have experiences separate from another person.
They can use their hands to strike drumhead of tambourine. They can also grasp and shake maraca or jingle bell. Be playful with your babies by including musical surprises like fermata, glissando, and even silence. They can also use whole body and can move rhythmically. We should all stand up (jump to the beat of the drum) and move our bodies together with the babies.

Create a plan for songs and music experiences to use in a Sprouting Melodies 2 session:
1. Gathering/Greeting: The group will sit in a circle as the therapist invites everyone to gather while strumming the guitar. When everyone has gathered and situated sing “Hello” song. Encourage the parents to sing along. Go around in circle and include names of each babies. Sing the song one more time.
2. Bonding: Sing “Hold on tight” sing the song without the instrument so that the therapist can model for the parents.
3. Songs about me: Sing “Can you see Me”. sing the song without the instrument so that the therapist can model for the parents.
4. Instrument songs: Sing “Dancing in the middle”. I like this song because it can invite the children in the middle of the drum.
5. Movement song: Sing “March with my baby”. After marching as the therapist plays the drum, encourage the parents to jump to the beat of the drum. Then try singing as you are jumping with parents and the babies.
6. Goodbye: After telling the group that it is time to say good-bye, teach them a new skill by singing “Thank you very much” and shaking hands.

[Julia Park]

Drums, tambourines, egg shakers, jingles, and maracas are good instruments at this developmental stage as they open their hands and able to grasp instruments and maintain it for a short period of time. I purchased my instruments from Remo. West music is another good resource to purchase a variety of instruments for kids.

[Julia Park]

Babies are much more active at this stage than Sprouting I. The words that come to my mind are: exploration, free movement, energy, and playful. The best way to tell if the stimulation is too much is by watching the baby. If the baby is fussy, distracted (hyperactive or withdrawn), withdrawn or even hit then it is mostly likely that the baby is overstimulated.

[Julia Park]

Working with a bunch of babies who need support all the time is such an intimidating experience. Let alone watching them itself is scary… but we have to do music with them too on top of everything? I am overwhelmed just thinking about it. lol. I would love to watch some videos of Meredith or Elizabeth actually interacting with children and parents.

[Julia Park]

Thank you Kristina & Erika for the feedbacks. Because Sprouting Melodies is run by music therapists, it is more inclusive then other early childhood music classes. I love it. Thank you

[Julia Park]

Nicole, good idea to have those sentences ready! These will come in handy when we are leading groups as we are trying to do million things at once.

[Julia Park]

Thank you Erika for answering my questions!I learned a lot from reading everyone’s posts. I had an opportunity to talk with a music director with master’s degree in music education. Her program offered early childhood music classes and she asked me what the differences were. I told her that sprouting was developed by music therapists and this program offers opportunities for children, parents, and families to come together to support each other through music making. I also told her that sprouting melodies providers are also specialists in early childhood development. The director told me that her program is exactly like sprouting melodies because parents come with their children and interact each other. I am still trying to get a better understanding on the differences between sprouting vs. other early childhood music programs out in the communities so that I could explain better. I would really appreciate some feedbacks. Thank you guys! Have a wonderful week.

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