[Laura Pruett]

I echo what a lot of people have already said – I found myself humming and dancing to myself the song, “Are You Ready For Music?” It’s fun for me! Yes, I’m ready for music! I also found myself repeating the same phrases in the second half of the song, and had to remind myself to try 4 separate phrases. For example, I kept singing, “Are you ready for music?/Are you ready for fun?/Are you ready for music?/Are you ready for fun?” and had to remind myself to not repeat so it sounded something like Beth sang: “Are you ready for music?/Are you ready to drum?/Are you ready to dance now?/Are you ready for fun?”

After listening to Beth sing and play the songs, I was energized to up my musicianship skills when it comes to kids music. The music doesn’t have to be bland and boring, it can have variation and syncopation and so many things that make music fun! I look forward to trying some of these songs in the near future.

[Laura Pruett]

Hi Erika,

Yes, my contact is Christine Heaps! She is fantastic. =)

[Laura Pruett]

Oh whoops. I posted my takeaway in the last post. I’ll reiterate a little bit here. My biggest takeaway from week 2’s content was the fact that reality and fantasy/imagination is blurred for early childhood. This has helped me understand squabbles between the preschoolers I work with, and how to better interact with them. I can hopefully use this knowledge to clear up what is real and what is not, and use that to help clear up hurt feelings. I also found reading through the developmental levels incredibly helpful and interesting, and I also appreciated the red flags that Beth pointed out throughout the videos.

[Laura Pruett]

When working with families, I bring as much assurance, calm and support as I can. I imagine I will be able to do this with early childhood family groups, but I also imagine there is so much joy in these groups. I love being silly with kids, and seeing young children make connections and flourish in a musical setting. I don’t think it would be difficult to make that joy infectious with the families that are also present. And from that joyful place, it would be easy to provide a sense of calm and assurance when care providers have questions about their child’s development.

The fact that young children have an inability or harder time discerning reality from imagination puts hurt feelings into context. This was my most valuable take away this week. I imagined the many tears I have seen in preschool MT groups, and now I am able to see from the kids’ perspectives a little better. They may not be able to understand there wasn’t any malicious attempt behind an interaction with someone else; if they imagine the ill intent, then it feels real to them. This information will help me have more patience and understanding with the kids. It will hopefully help me plan the groups better, to help set the kids up for successful interactions.

[Laura Pruett]

Hello, everyone! I also posted 2 weeks ago, and I am now seeing that it didn’t go through. I will follow Erica’s advice, and keep a Word Doc with all my responses to keep a hard copy from now on!

My name is Laura Pruett, I graduated from California State University, Northridge and did my internship with Seasons Hospice. I have been working as a music therapist since 2011, and while I was living in California, I worked primarily with adults. I worked at a SNF and an In-Patient Psychiatric Hospital. When I moved to Phoenix, AZ in 2014, where I currently live, I started a private practice. I work with couples in pregnancy, labor and birth, adults with DD/ID, and kids in school and home settings. The transition to working with kids was really hard for me, but now I love my preschool groups. They might be my favorite groups.

I was introduced to Sprouting Melodies through a colleague of mine that offers Sprouting Melodies classes in our community. I am interested in working with her, and also building up my own business when I move out of AZ this fall. I am very interested in learning how to help young children connect with their families. Right now the preschool groups I do are in the school setting, where parents are not present. I look forward to learning with and from everyone here!

PS – I noticed a typo after I posted this just a minute ago. I edited the post, but when I submitted the edit, my post was gone. So, I am re-posting this. Sorry if this turns out to be a duplicate.

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