General Updates of Things I Do...

Looking back over the school year at this point, I realize that I've tried several new things. I've found a bullet journal format that works for me for session strategizing, and I've also worked through including centers in some of my music therapy sessions. I've also included a "daily happiness" routine and attended some presentations and training about topics that are not part of my regular way of doing things. All of these things were challenging and fruitful. None of them were easy to find my way, but that's what life is - if it offers a challenge, I enjoy it. If it is too easy, I find it boring and not worth talking about.

Here are updates of where I am in my list of things that I do on a daily basis:

1. Bullet Journal Schedule Strategizing - On a weekly basis (usually on Friday afternoons), I sit down with my bullet journal and strategize for upcoming sessions. Right now, I am able to plan about 2-3 weeks out from the current session. I sit down, look at my routine, and I start to brainstorm. I am starting to strategize for January 2018 right now since the Winter Holiday starts on the 22nd. I've decided to make some changes to how I do centers for my various client groups, so I am currently brainstorming how to implement these changes. My brainstorming leads me to finding all sorts of ideas to go with each of the weekly foci, but I cannot (and do not) do all those things, so I have a bigger list of ideas than I have time to implement! This is a wonderful side effect of this brainstorming process - options!
2. Centers - As I mentioned, I am getting ready to implement some new centers. Some of my adolescents have expressed interest in learning to play an instrument and others want to explore some songwriting. As a result, I am trying to figure out a way to incorporate those types of things into centers without completely abandoning the other centers that I already have - sensory, listening, etc. I am working on an interactive notebook which will coordinate with a bigger theme for the month - something about character. We will listen to lyrics of specifically chosen songs and then complete parts of our pages with responses to those songs. We will see if that increases active participation for students who are not inclined to participate in much of anything.
3. Daily Happiness - This is something that I'm doing on my personal feed. I write about something in my life that has offered me some measure of happiness in the last 24 hours. These are often easy to write, but some days it is a bit of a struggle (today is one of those days).

I want to find about 8 extra hours every day so I can do everything that I want to get done. I am going to be working on organizing my center information, making more things for centers, organizing my communication tools for more general use, and continuing to organize, organize, organize! At this point, my focus is on getting my documentation finished and finding things to do every week. At least I am keeping up!

It is time to start getting ready to go to work. I'm not emotionally ready for work, but I need to go, so off I go into the cold, dark morning.

Happy Wednesday!