[Sara May]

It’s been a bit since I’ve worked with children this young, however, upon completion of the Sprouting Melodies training, I will begin working with them again (yay)! So, for right now, I don’t have a place to implement these experiences into my current practice…but I will, and my how I certainly hope to implement them and give space for silence (that’s a big one!). In the past I’ve used lots of mimicking/call and response, listening, and movement. I can see now where these small tweaks to my sessions and where my focus was could have made a great difference in the sessions and what the children got out of it.

[Sara May]

Singing:
Awareness – vocalizes in response to sound; Trust – Changes in pitch as a reaction to hearing a change in pitch from a familiar voice; Independence – Using repeated sounds; Control – Purposeful imitation of words; Responsibility – Sings and plays instrument (together)

Playing Instrument:
Awareness – movements matching simple rhythms; Trust – Brief moments of being in time and maintaining pulse with melody; Independence – Transferring of instruments from hand to hand or hitting with different feet; Control – Purposeful choice of instrument and/or how to play the instrument; Responsibility – Matches music level

Moving:
Awareness – recognizes play v sedative music; Trust – response of play v sedative music (moving v looking internally); Independence – Use of whole body to rock or bounce back and forth; Control – Spontaneous/sporadic dancing; Responsibility – Intentional dancing – simple dances may be learned or imitated

Listening:
Awareness – Turns attention towards (or away from) music stimulus; Trust – Notices changes in familiar melodies; Independence – Enjoying and engaging in shifts within musical stimuli (crescendos); Control – Anticipates phrase beginning/endings; Responsibility – Mimicking of loud and soft

[Sara May]

I absolutely had a blast singing these songs! This coming weekend I am actually super excited to be using some of theme as a ‘Family Kids Day’ that my job is putting on at a local brewery to promote our Early Childhood classes, such as Sprouting Melodies! after singing through theme, the ones that have truly stuck in my head have been “Hold On Tight!” “I Can Move Around,” and “Good Morning.” Looking forward to using these in practice!

[Sara May]

I recently moved from Texas to Ohio in the Appalachian area, so, this is a bit tougher for me to comment on. On the whole, I find that the community up here identifies and prefers music from hymns, country, or older genres such as the Beetles and Frank Sinatra. In the programs I work in, youth psychiatric, I have found that even the little kids (around age 8) do not prefer soundtrack music but rather the rap and hip-hop music that the older (teens) do. One thing all of my individuals and groups have in common though, is bluegrass music. Unfortunately, bluegrass is new to me, so, I am working hard to pick it up and learn how proper bluegrass is done.

[Sara May]

It has been a little bit since I have had a full group of kiddos to think about this sort of developmental level with, so, please bear with me! The most recent occurrence with a group of children this young was when I was working along-side a speech-language pathologist in a summer speech program for children pre-school and younger. During this time, I recall observing children in both the independence stage, the trust stage, and the responsibility stage…all within the same group. Looking back on it now, I find it beautiful that the children in the trust stage had children in the independence and responsibility stages to look up to. Actually, I think that those who transitioned into the responsibility stage while in the program took more prompts from their peers as they moved along than from me. There were times when the older children in the group observed myself and other music therapists doing hand-over-hand interventions with the younger ones and by the end of the summer program, they were right there with us, assisting their friends in holding shakers and trying to get their friends to dance around too!

[Sara May]

My most valuable takeaway from this weeks’ content was allowing myself to remember the importance of bringing my “grown-up” world to the appropriate level of the child. So often as adults we forget the way that children see things and easily gloss over the reasons of why a child may not feel like they fit. It’s on us, as music therapists working with children, to check ourselves regarding the way we hold ourselves and the way we speak to children. They are still developing, in the traditional developmental meaning but also in a musical way. Being aware of how someone responds to certain things is critical to their success and ability to feel understood and that they “fit”.

[Sara May]

Being a new professional to the field of music therapy and working with younger children who have been placed into partial hospitalization programs, I have found a greater need of awareness regarding where children of specific ages should be in their musical development and where they should be in the developmental process, generally speaking. The area of Ohio where I currently live is known to have a great divide between families who have attended college and those who have not. Many of the resources commonly found in larger cities are lacking in this area, including programs expressing and teaching milestones and ways to be musical with young children to create bonds that can help set children up to be successful. The musical and emotional needs of young children are not being met by their families, I believe that with the knowledge and base that Sprouting Melodies brings for children and families, this is a wonderful way to begin the conversation within the community and create better environments for children to be successful and understood within.

[Sara May]

Hello, everyone! My name is Sara May and I practice music therapy in the Athens County area of Ohio! I am recently board certified and will be soon completing the last leg of my course work for my Masters at Texas Woman’s University. Currently I am working with a variety of populations, however, the two primary populations I am working with are children and adolescents in partial psychiatric hospitalization settings. I have always had a very intense interest in working with children and am soon hopefully beginning an Early Childhood Education program at an elementary school in Athens. I look forward to what this course holds and the knowledge it brings!

[Author]

Posts