[Melissa Spiess]

Elizabeth that is so wonderful.. Thanks for sharing!!

On a side note, I have not been able to get these emailed comments to link back to the appropriate question. The links always took me to the sign in page and then the curriculum. This is the first time the link worked. So glad that got fixed for the next round of participants based on comments!

[Melissa Spiess]

One of my favorite things to do is networking and this is a great way to educate people. I found that my parents really love to have information in class and why were doing what we’re doing. They also seem to really appreciate handouts to take home with ideas of ways to incorporate the materials that we did in class at home and to expand on the things that we did and further explaining why we’re doing what we’re doing.Our business already has a Facebook page and blog and we can continue to educate families, coordinators, and potential participants, that way as well

@Kristin – This is a perfect example of the power of networking! Well done!

At Megan let’s talk about your church family!

[Melissa Spiess]

@Elizabeth that’s awesome about the children’s museum!

@Megan, I’m so glad that you were able to take this training and that you are excited about the impact it will have on your work.We will definitely find some classes for you!

Meredith and I have talked at conferences over the years about the ability to meet multiple levels of needs in the community for music therapy, music education, and different aspects of music. I am incredibly excited that we are able to meet different needs and different bring different strengths to our programming in our community.One thing that is a major challenge as a business owner is to make everything financially viable. I feel like offering a combination of music therapy, and early childhood music will help to balance schedules and financials.It’s very difficult to fill the early morning slots for music therapy and these are the best times for early childhood so that is great! I feel like this training has really reinforced many of the things that I knew but had questioned in myself.

[Melissa Spiess]

I am most looking forward to having a community of people who are music therapist but also providing early childhood music education. I’m also excited to have resources like the SM sayings, and a village of people who can help with brainstorming and celebrating our successes. That’s great news that there is ongoing continuing education available as well.

@Erika -right on that relationship building is the key to success.

[Melissa Spiess]

I find that having multiple ways that children and Caregivers can participate to be very helpful. Providing adaptations for different developmental levels, interests, energy/activity levels, and needs. I find that sometimes identifying the subtle ways that people are responding can be helpful. Some of these things could be just simple movements or changes in attention, arousal, eyes…just as we would with music therapy. Often times parents don’t recognize these intermediary steps and reinforcing the fact that the child is engaged in someway can be helpful.

@Emma-I like the idea of reframing things in the positive as in what you do need them to do. That said I am not a person who believes that the word no should be admitted from the vocabulary. For example we don’t throw the maracas. This is how we use them.

@Erika I agree that using language such as we have found that or sometimes it helps if you can be helpful and more effective and enticing.

@Elizabeth Yes!!The more we have our Music memorized session plan in place ideas of things that were going to say worked out in our head so we don’t have to look at our notes the more we can spend time actively engaging the children and redirecting as needed. I also feel like if we had all of our music memorized and accuse have worked out any better and are not looking at our Scripps then we appear more engaged and it’s more motivating for the Participants. I had said I admit I use scripts sometimes.I think I like to write everything down on the session plan so that I have figured out in my brain how I’m going to describe things and facilitate interventions, even if I don’t use it inclass

[Melissa Spiess]

SM3: Energetic, Explorative, Creative, Building Independence, Exciting

Plan- Gathering song: “Gather Round”. Bonding Song: “My Brand New Friend”. I LOVE this song for shared movement, developing social interaction, and the use of props. Songs About Me: “Where is the Music”. This is such a catchy and empowering song! I can definitely see the kids really getting into the end of the chant! Instrument Song: “Music is the Way”. Love the pentatonic instrument with this. I have touch bells and resonator bells that would work well with this in addition to the resonator bars if needed for size of group. Movement Song: “Ten Tiny Toes” I started singing this board book to my daughter. It just naturally leads itself to song, movement, and exploration of body parts. “Mouth, ears, eyes, nose, arms, belly, legs, and ten tiny toes! Touch your ears make them wiggle. Touch your belly, laugh and giggle. Touch your mouth open wide. Touch your arms, wave side to side… Touch your toes, bend down low. Touch your legs, up you go…” Goodbye Song: “Thank You Very Much” I love that this teaches functional words and gestures!
@Emma I love your adaptation for Will you Come in the FS session!

Family Sprouts: Adaptable, Accommodating, Supportive, Bonding, Family Centered
Plan- Gathering song: “Gather Round”. Bonding Song: “Little Red Wagon” with sibling pairs/friends sitting either next to each other or across from each other holding hand. The melody is the same as “My Brand New Friend”. Lyrics are “bumping up and down in my little red wagon… one wheel’s off and the other one’s draggin’” you bounce and lean at the appropriate places in the song. I have also had siblings having a lot of fun doing this as a lap song (with supervision of course) with their younger sibling. Songs About Me: “Hand, Hand, Fingers Thumb”. Instrument Song: “You Play a Little”. Love the reciprocal play already built into the song. Seems perfect for sibling pairs and friends to interact together. Movement Song: “The Leaves are Falling” with scarves. For the younger children we can do this as a sensory scarf exploration for the older kids more gross motor movement. Goodbye Song: “Thank You Very Much”

[Melissa Spiess]

There is a whole lot going on in multi-age groupings. They are incredibly busy and can be more challenging to maintain control of. Special attention, intentionality, and focus must be given to make sure that individual needs are being met and the group cohesion maintains. You need to provide adaptations for different levels of development, independence, and functioning. You also need to have a wider range of instruments that will be appropriate for the abilities and interests of different ages and levels of children and have to try to get them to the right kids.

I tried two different classes like this with my daughter and often felt very disappointed that there were so many opportunities for engagement, adaptation, and interaction that were missed or passed over. From experience with multi age intergenerational groups, the age range can be a benefit in meeting interest areas (babies, toddlers, older children) of more people in the older generations.

@Destiny. Be grateful you are a MT! Did we talk about the strengths that you bring to the table as a music therapist 😉 I imagine that this would be a very challenging scenario for a music teacher without the extra training we receive. If you can be successful with a group of kids of unknown age and number in advance, I will love to see how great you will be with a session plan you can follow! You are awesome.

@Emma Good observation in all the parallels between working with kids and working in memory care in particular. I see a lot of similarities in different abilities, needs, and honestly the musical developmental levels seem to work backwards for seniors in memory care. It’s great that you recognize the need to adapt on your feet and that you have toolbox of things you can pull from given different situations and needs. On the upside with regular SM family classes (it might be different with marketing groups such as the library groups, etc) you will know who the options for kids participating will be and it will be a narrower range. It’s just a matter of who shows up that day.

[Melissa Spiess]

Perhaps I am not interpreting the question correctly, but I think of these two phrases in terms of music for early childhood music and music in therapy. For music for development children are developing in typical manners and we are using the music to support the natural progression of emerging skills and abilities. For music for skill building, there is a clinical issue or need that the music is being used to elicit that is not happening in a natural or normal progression.

[Melissa Spiess]

I love the basic beat jumbo egg shakers. They are too big to fit in baby’s mouths and they can hold onto them well. I love chikitas and jumbo chakitas. Honer tube shaker and rolling shapes bead rattle (has a circle handle around a rolling tube). I have a bucket of miscellaneous instruments to explore that I’ve acquired over the years that are all baby safe. I like to bring in a unique instrument every week for kids and parents to explore as they are gathering (the bahia buffalo drum, reverie harp are huge successes for this. Babies and parents love to put their feet on the back of the reverie harp as I play). For all instruments they have to be high quality sound and construction so they don’t drive us nuts at high volume and hold up to be safe for the kids. I have some plastic claves that have shaker beads in them from Kindermusik and would LOVE to get my hands on more of those if anyone knows where I can find them.

[Melissa Spiess]

There is a fine line to determine how much stimulation is just right. You want there to be enough stimulation to catch and maintain attention, for the children to be actively or passively engaged, and to make classes interesting for parents. Determining how much simulation is too much is where our awesome MT skills come into play. The same signs of overstimulation we would watch for in music therapy apply. Are the children tensing, flinching, startling, do their expressions change in negative ways…Have they shut down and are now withdrawing in the corner?

@Destiny. The session contour is such a critical way to adjust for over and under stimulation and maintaining attention and engagement.

@Kristin Yes! The session contour is critical for everyone, not just the kids!! They made a really good point about trying to jump while talking while playing a drum. It’s exhausting for us as facilitators. It’s even more exhausting for a parent holding a 20 pound child!!

@ Emma. DEFINITELY Session plan!!!! Write down every direction you will provide to parents as well. Over plan as well, just as you would for MT sessions so you have a few extra interventions. I found it interesting that the general structure of our session plan with SM is the 6 songs. You will need much more than this to fill a 45-minute group even with exploration. I think their point is that these are the basic components to start with and to include each of these in every session plus a few other things. Kind of like how you collect data on 4 goals in your MT session but have other things to prime, support, and make your kid want to do the other interventions.

[Melissa Spiess]

Supportive, affirming, grounding, bonding, playful

1. Even babies this young have their very own internal steady beat, their heartbeat. Feeling and moving to steady beat w/ baby helps him develop a sense of time and learn to organize and coordinate his movements within time.

2. Routines help baby understand their world and build trust through predictability. Routines like our hello and goodbye song help baby understand that this is a safe, comfortable, fun space to engage with the world. It also provides a clear time for YOU as caregivers. Use our hello song to take some deep breaths and settle into class. Notice how Baby responds differently each time a song is repeated.

3. Movement is a way of knowing. All of Baby’s sensations are coordinated through the kinesthetic sense. It is important for movement to be an integrate part in all kinds of learning.

4. Holding Baby in a variety of different ways can help her to see the world from different perspectives and to experience movement in different ways. Try holding her in a variety of different positions and moving in creative ways. Notice how her expressions change when seeing the world from different positions.

5. Hearing & feeling music at different tempi helps Baby develop a sense of timing & learn to comprehend language & music at different speeds. Notice how he giggles when we go faster and listens carefully when we slow down. What other differences do you notice?

Plan:Hello song for grounding, intention setting, and ritual. “Today’s A Beautiful Day”. Bonding Song: “Little Red Wagon” having caregivers explore different ways to hold baby for bouncing, start and stops, and tempo changes. Songs About Me: “Where is My Face”. Start with exploration of scarves: holding in different ways (open, bunched in a ball, folded, etc), sound effects, and exploring touching baby with it in different places with the different configurations. Then sing song using the scarf to “reveal” baby’s face in different ways. Instrument Song: Begin with exploration of jumbo shakers and different ways to make sound with them. Then play along to “Biddy Biddy” This song uses different nonsense syllables on a repeating melody. It’s supper catchy and my girl really loves to bob and shake to it. Movement Song: “Keel Row” free dance that has caregivers changing how they hold and move babies every few phrases: moving babies forward/back, up/down, side/side, circles, swoop… Goodbye Song: The SM goodbye song

[Melissa Spiess]

It’s funny that I seem to be in the minority here. This is my absolute favorite age of children to work with! I have always loved babies and having one myself has just reinforced this more. There is so much innocence, potential, and pure joy with this age. Every tiny little development and change is a big deal and normal. I love how they make you look at things through new eyes and experience everything as a big deal. I think we can learn a whole lot about how to live from children. Sometimes as adults it’s too easy to take things for granted and to lose sight of the joy in the world. We recently went to Maine on a vacation with my family. We did quite a bit of hiking with our 16-month-old in the backpack. We would start on a hike and she would vocalize on a nice descending third “oh oh” when we would start out. It was quite possibly the most beautiful thing. It was like she was saying remember Mom and Dad this stuff is gorgeous!

To all of you without children, you absolutely have TONS of knowledge and experience you can bring to the table even for children this young. Quite honestly, many parents are just figuring this stuff out along the way too!

@ Emma you obviously haven’t met my daughter in the grocery store 😉 She feels the need to say “hi” to everyone she sees (regardless of repeat viewings). If they don’t respond she elongates it with a “hi iiii” .

[Melissa Spiess]

As music therapists, we bring a very unique skill set to the table. We are able to facilitate the music experiences but also to do so intentionally to encourage and support development. We can adapt experiences based on the immediate needs and interests of the group, both children and caregivers, in the moment. We can handle behaviors and challenging situations and help provide inclusive programing. For Family Sprouts groups we can provide different levels of participation for different age children. We know about basic things like infection control and the need to clean instruments. These things that seem like basic elements to us as music therapists are things that are not often happening in classes with general music educators, even if they have degrees in music.

@Kristin – I love your point about our ability to individualize groups based on family needs interests!

@Emma – YES! This is a perfect way for fathers (and grandfathers) to bond with their kids. I was really pleased to see that many dads and a grandfather of a friend of mine participated in classes. You are right, there are a LOT of support systems and unique needs for Moms postpartum. However, it’s really hard for the Dads to feel the support and have the bonding they need. Especially if Mom is breastfeeding. I feel like I totally cheated in the bonding factor with that experience and honestly feel a little bad that my husband didn’t have that same experience. It was really beautiful, with the grandfather who participated it was a really eye opening experience for my friend.

A little parent quote for you on these very topics:
“I didn’t know how much fun we’d have or how useful music groups would be for my daughter until I started attending classes. We use the songs all the time at home and I use them in the car when we are driving and she starts to cry, she gets a huge smile. There is a song that goes with almost everything. I met parents, which are huge resources for me! It is great to know other parents with children the same age as your little one.

The funny thing is that I didn’t think babies this little would be ready for this sort of thing and I couldn’t imagine it before we went. This was just the age though to introduce music and dancing to children. She absolutely loved it. Babies this age love movement and I wouldn’t have even thought to do some of the things we do if I hadn’t attended these groups. My parents went to groups as well. They love to sing and dance with her too. My dad has a great voice – who knew! He never sang to me this way. Wow – very cool.”

[Melissa Spiess]

In our area there is a significant ethnic and financial diversity. There are many lower income neighborhoods in our area so funding might be a challenge. Time will tell what other specific needs are…

[Melissa Spiess]

Music therapists are specifically trained to understand exactly how the body and brain respond to music. We understand the developmental sequence and can recognize small steps to help enhance growth when there are challenges. We are able to modify and guide behavior, direct interventions for specific goal-based purposes, and can educate parents on how to use music for developmental, social, and emotional purposes. Many music educators plan their sessions in terms of activities, but not necessarily for goal-based developmental growth. One significant difference I have observed in music therapy vs music activity-based groups, is the ability of the music therapist to identify multiple levels of participation. As an added bonus, we can recognize when there are challenges and help parents with resources and suggestions to modify things for success.

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