[Patricia Karr]

5 WORDS (SM3):
Active, Creative, Intentional, Supportive, Social.

PLAN (SM3):
Gathering Song: “Sit Down With Me”—Sing the song several times through while modeling a different movement for each verse (e.g. march, clap hands, pat knees with steady firm beat). Incorporate children’s movement ideas for additional verses. Encourage caregivers and children to sing along throughout. For each verse, pause before the last note of the song to give children the opportunity to sing the final “la.”

Greeting Song: “Good Morning to You”—With everyone gathered and facing the center of the circle, MT-BC sings a verse for each child’s name. Incorporate handshakes, waves from across the room, and singing.

Bonding Song: “My Brand New Friend”—Use scarves as a mediating object between dyads (or triads). Caregiver and child move together while holding a corner of the same scarf. Movements can include jumping, turning, etc. Incorporate children’s new movement ideas. Repeat the song with new partners. MT-BC and caregivers model movements and encourage children in finding new movement partners.

Song About Me: “Where Is the Music?”—Pat beat on knees while chanting the words. Allow children to sit or move freely around the room. Caregivers support the children by chanting and moving.

Instrument Play: “Music Is the Way”— Bring out a variety of mallet instruments such as glockenspiels, metallophones, and resonator bells set up in a pentatonic scale. Encourage everyone to play on an instrument of his or her choice. Instruct adults to allow the children to freely choose how they want to participate (e.g. choose an instrument, choose to change instruments/places on the circle, play with another person on a larger instrument, move instead of play, listen).

Movement Song: “Will You Come?” Play a frame drum with a mallet on the beat. Sing verses about marching and jumping. MT-BC and caregivers model movements and sing. Encourage children’s movements.

Cool Down/ Transition Song: “The More We Get Together”—Using a stretchy band, invite everyone to hold on while swaying and singing. In future sessions, set aside the stretchy band and incorporate sign language for “more,” “together,” and “friends.”

Goodbye Song: “Goodbye”—Parents model waving goodbye to each child as his/her name is sung. Encourage children to sing and wave to their friends.

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5 WORDS (Family Sprouts):
Togetherness, Bonding, Flexible, Accommodating, Cooperative.

PLAN (Family Sprouts):
Greeting Song: “Good Morning to You”—Sing while families are entering the room and getting ready for Family Sprouts group.

Gathering Song: “Hey Everybody, Come and Join Me in the Circle”—Pat knees with steady firm beat. Encourage caregivers to sing and pat along. Watch for babies’ attempts to vocalize/move to beat and children’s attempts to sing/pat along.

Bonding Song: “Wiggly Jiggly Car”—With baby on lap or seated in front of caregiver, caregiver opens arms wide and closes arms around baby during 4/4 section. Caregiver bounces baby to beat of faster 6/8 section, stops on word “stop,” sways baby slowly and widely on “Oh, Oh, Oh,” then bounces baby until final “stop.” Older children can be seated or standing within caregivers’ arms (between caregiver and baby) and “help” baby bounce, sway, and stop.

Song About Me: “Just Like Me”—Caregiver points or helps baby point to body parts and baby’s chest on “me.” Upon repetition, caregiver turns baby to view siblings/others while continuing to point or have siblings point to/help baby point to baby’s body parts and chest on “me.” During further repetitions of the song, caregiver and/or older sibling models and encourages baby’s independence with pointing to body parts. Older children can also point independently to their own body parts and interact with others around the room.

Instrument Play: “I Like This Song”— Babies spend time exploring/creating sounds on small maracas, jingle bells, and jingle taps. Older children and adults play on a variety of non-tuned percussion instruments of their choice including those with mallets.

Movement/Instrument Song: “I Can Move Around”—Continue instrument play. Encourage movement. Also encourage singing, especially on the “la, la la…,” “choo,” and ”cha, cha, cha” parts. Adults and older children can model movement, instrument play, and singing for the toddlers and babies.

Transition/Cool Down Song: “The More We Get Together”–While facing toward the center of the circle, adults and older children sing and sway with babies in their arms. (Babies can be standing, sitting, or cradled). Use signs for “more, “together,” and “friends.”

Goodbye Song: “Goodbye”—Wave goodbye to others.

[Patricia Karr]

Cheryl-Lee, I agree with Rebecca that your keeping the same Goodbye Song throughout each SM level is a great idea. The familiarity of the same melody and lyrics helps mark the end of the session and signal a moment of expectation that it is time to transition to life outside of Sprouting Melodies.

[Patricia Karr]

Rebecca, I have been learning a lot from reading your thoughtful and thorough posts each week. Thank you for the time you spend carefully processing the material for each assignment and offering your thoughts.

[Patricia Karr]

Hi Cindy,
I mentioned a few things in my post about encouraging participation/engagement of the adults and older kids. Leadership and special roles often encourage engagement and purposeful/helpful activity. How about giving some of them an active role in playing an instrument or leading the movement, especially if the song is familiar? Sometimes parents can model a movement idea as a precursor to the older kids presenting ideas. Musically-talented parents might like to have the role of playing the drum beat for the group or layering in another harmony line as a means to increasing their engagement. Hope this helps.

[Patricia Karr]

I have had the opportunity to work with multi-age groupings with older children (3 years and up) within the special education setting and when working on school-wide programs that bring children of varying abilities together. Some of the classrooms, particularly those for individuals with mild and moderate cognitive impairments, visual impairments, and severe multiple impairments, were comprised of students with age ranges of up to five years within a given classroom. The classroom teachers would individualize the instruction and group students together as appropriate. I, on the other hand, was responsible for taking the full class together for their music therapy time. Yes, there are many challenges in working with multi-aged groups. I agree with and have experienced a number of the challenges mentioned by my Sprouting Melody training colleagues in this forum. Providing varied experiences that offered many different ways to participate/ various levels of participation was important to my success in these situations. The music experiences often had multiple layers (basic beat or ostinato and more complex parts) or paired signing and singing, playing and singing, etc. That way, individuals could choose their level of participation by ability. I would often teach these parts systematically, starting with the most basic first. I offered special roles to those who needed to be active or wanted to have attention/control/responsibility. The experiences had to be appealing and challenging, yet attainable. Not always an easy task! In many cases, I had to also consider the adults in the room, such as parents, teachers, or parapros. Explaining how to be helpful without taking over the independence of the students was a part of our conversations. Of course, having all adults participate in the experiences and model musical behavior was helpful and made for an enjoyable experience for everyone. I found that I could not necessarily meet all of the needs or please everyone at all moments, but could do so for at least some of the time during the session. I think that as long as we address all of the children at their level for a good chunk of the session and motivate the adults to participate, we have had a satisfactory level of success. We can prepare ahead of time for multiple levels as I learned in this class and through my experience. In Sprouting Melodies sessions, giving older siblings the role of helper is a great tip for meeting their developmental needs and keeping them engaged. I also really like the tips about positioning so that all siblings have the attention of the parent and the level of connection or independence they need.

[Patricia Karr]

5 WORDS:
Playful, Exploratory, Engaging, Supportive, Active.

5 SENTENCES:
It’s ok if the children touch and explore my guitar. It’s fine if your baby wants to take a break to do something else, because at this age, paying attention for the entire session is not an appropriate expectation. Your child does not need to be active to be learning; she is learning quite a bit by just watching. Right now, he is learning by watching you, and he will do the motions when he feels ready to. Your child’s movement in and out of the circle is an important part of her developing independence, and it is fine for her to move in and out of the circle so long as she is safe.

PLAN:
Gathering Song: “Sit Down With Me”—Pat knees with steady firm beat. Encourage caregivers to sing along. Listen for babies’ attempts to vocalize.

Greeting Song: “Good Morning to You”—With everyone gathered and facing the center of the circle, MT-BC sings a verse for each baby’s name, reaching for baby’s hand. If baby reaches out, MT-BC shakes baby’s hand.

Bonding Song:: “Wiggly Jiggly Car”—With baby on lap or seated in front of caregiver, caregiver opens arms wide and closes arms around baby during 4/4 section. Caregiver bounces baby to beat of faster 6/8 section, stops on word “stop,” sways baby slowly and widely on “Oh, Oh, Oh,” then bounces baby until final “stop.”

Song About Me: “Just Like Me”—In a dyad of caregiver and baby, caregiver points or helps baby point to body parts and baby’s chest on “me.” Upon repetition, caregiver turns baby toward center of circle to view peers while continuing to point to baby’s body parts and chest on “me.” During further repetitions of the song, caregiver models and encourages baby’s independence with pointing to body points.

Instrument Play: “Shake, Shake, Shake, Uh-Huh”— Babies spend time exploring/creating sounds on small maracas, jingle bells, and jingle taps. Sing, model, and encourage different ways to instruments (up high, down low, stop, go, fast, slow, by your toes, tummy, knee, etc.).

Movement Song: “Pick Your Hands Up High”—Using small colorful scarves, everyone moves scarves freely and lift or toss scarves high in the air. Before putting scarves away, encourage caregivers to cover faces with scarf and engage babies in a game of “Where Oh Where Did I Go? (Wait) Boo! Now I See You!”

Cool Down/ Transition Song: “The More We Get Together”–Adults sing and sway with babies while facing toward the center of the circle.

Goodbye Song: “Goodbye”–Caregivers model waving goodbye to each baby as his/her name is sung.

[Patricia Karr]

Sabrina, I like your approach of starting conservatively and increasing the intensity to gauge the appropriate level of stimulation needed, especially for the more sensitive children.

[Patricia Karr]

Cindy, I just wanted to say how much I enjoy reading your clear behavioral descriptions each week. For being what you often refer to as a “newbie,” you sure have developed some great observation skills. I always find myself nodding in agreement that I’ve seen these same behaviors in the little ones I have known. Keep up the good work!

[Patricia Karr]

Cheryl,
Yes, the adults can absolutely be overstimulated too at times. And the children pick up on this stress. We need to set a tone of calm and playfulness that can put the parents and children at ease when they enter our room. This calls on us to do some mental preparation and self-care before each session so we can really be present and provide the best experience possible for our children and caregivers.

[Patricia Karr]

We want children to feel safe to explore their environment and try new experiences. This helps advance their development and understanding of the world. To encourage this growth, we have to offer children enough stimulation and challenge so that the children are drawn to participate in the experiences we offer them, but not so much that they retreat and disengage. Finding the right balance can be tricky as each child is different in personality and the way he or she processes external stimuli. Children at this age can be at different places in their development. Other factors such as teething or feeling hungry or tired can also affect the level of stimulation a child can handle in a given moment. Therefore, we must get to know and really watch the children carefully for signs of understimulation and overstimulation and adjust accordingly. Some of these signs can be subtle. In response to these signs, we can change the music or the experience, add moments of silence, or adjust controllable environmental elements, such as lighting or temperature of the room. As the provider, we are responsible for setting the tone for a calm, comfortable, playful music environment. We can control for some of the safety and environmental issues in our planning and room setup before the children arrive, but the majority of the adjustments will have to be made in the moment in response to what we observe in the children’s behaviors and reactions.

[Patricia Karr]

Several of you mentioned the value of silence. Yes, I couldn’t agree more that our clients need time without the music. I have to continue to remind myself of this, even though I have witnessed the benefits of silence on multiple occasions.

[Patricia Karr]

Thank you to everyone for sharing your experiences about working with infants in the NICU setting. I am especially grateful for your insights, Cheryl, from your personal experience with your daughter. I am learning so much from all of you.

[Patricia Karr]

My experiences with this youngest age group are through raising my two sons, as well as observing a number of family members’ and friends’ children over the years. A close family member just had her second child last week, and I get the chance to watch another little one go through his early developmental stages. I have never worked with babies 0-9 months in the clinical setting. I have always thought about it. I am glad to be learning from all of you in this class and to be learning about Sprouting Melodies. I have learned so much and wish I had known all of this information when my boys were young. Those years just fly by, and you find yourself always wondering if you could have done a better job of parenting. Anyhow–I still remember so many things I witnessed and felt as a parent in the various stages of my sons’ lives. This definitely helps me relate to what is being discussed in this course and, I believe, to younger parents, as well.

[Patricia Karr]

I believe music therapists can play an important role in community-based programs, where the quality and depth of knowledge we bring to our work would stand out as unique and valuable. Parents are looking for quality programs for their children, value for their hard-earned money, and balance/wellness in their busy lives. It seems to me that we music therapists can assist in all of these areas. We can address the needs of both child and parent and provide families this support within an enjoyable, calming, bonding experience. We truly have value outside of the clinical setting and should consider what we can also provide to our broader communities. There are many opportunities. God knows the world needs a lot of healing and support!

[Patricia Karr]

5 WORDS:
Warm, Gentle, Repetitive, Comfortable, Playful.

5 SENTENCES:
Your baby is listening for your voice, so sing along! You can practice the songs here with your baby, then you will remember them to enjoy together at home. Your baby smiling on that change in the music and the movement shows that she is bonding to you and developing trust. Did you hear your baby match your voice’s pitch? It’s ok that your baby is mouthing the maraca; this is an important way he learns about objects at this age.

PLAN:
Gathering/Greeting Song: “Hello”—Parent firmly touches baby’s chest for his or her turn.
Song About Me: “All of This Is Me”—Parent touches baby’s body parts mentioned in the song.
Bonding Song: “Row It Faster”—With bent knees, parent cradles child in lap. Sway baby to the tempo of the song. At the word “Whoa,” parent gently drops knees in a pretend fall and takes note of baby’s reaction.
Instrument Play: “You Can Make a Pretty Sound”—Parent and baby spend time exploring/creating sounds on small maracas.
Movement Song: “As Big As Can Be”—Parent holds then lifts baby on the word “up.”
Song About Me/Cool Down: Repeat “All of This is Me”
Goodbye Song: “Goodbye”—Parents model waving goodbye to each baby as his or her name is sung.

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