Centers - Reflections on The First Time Around
So, if you've been following this blog lately, you know that I am currently trying something new for me - I am starting to use centers as part of my music therapy sessions.
This came about because I have large groups of students placed in classrooms that have very little therapeutic rhyme or reason. Clients are constantly changing - kids leave and brand new ones arrive pretty much all the time. We never find a time where we stabilize.
I am trying something different. Two times per month, I am setting up centers for my clients to complete as part of their music therapy treatment.
I have three centers - Explore, Listen, and Learn. These titles simply give me a way to indicate where I want clients to go during the session. I also have two different task indicators for my centers - Must Do and May Do tasks. I completed one full round of centers for half of the school last week - the other half will do centers this upcoming week. This is due to the snow day and day off that I took last week - I didn't see some of my groups in regular sessions, so centers will last longer than I originally intended, but that's okay.
So, when clients move to a center, there is a card that has instructions on it. These instructions are different based on the types of client present in the session. The instructions are also for the staff members present (more about them later). There is a Must Do task - the one experience I want everyone to complete - and then there are May Do tasks - things that clients may choose once they are done with the Must Do task.
I am using themes to arrange these center tasks. This month, everything is based on "The Future/Occupations/Dreams." Next month's focus is "Healthy Relationships/Love." The music we listen to is based on the theme, and some of the Must Do tasks are also themed.
This week, the explore center included using my vocation fingerpuppets to select a future occupation (veterinarian won, hands down) or writing song lyrics about future plans. After that was completed, there was a sensory box to explore for tactile stimulation, blocks to play with, and/or motor challenges. I selected three songs from my January 2018 playlist and asked for preferences at the listen center. We are using Interactive Notebooks for that center - a way for my clients to write or vote or indicate preferences within a set format. The learn center had a Must Do task of playing Musical Note War with a peer. After that, students had an opportunity to play one of the guitars or ukuleles or write a song from scratch.
After every session, I wrote down my impressions of how it went. For a first time out, it went pretty well, but I need to make some adjustments.
First of all, having three centers was too much for some of my groups. Having to read instructions was a bit too much for most of the staff members I worked with this past week - I'll be making large boards for them to ignore this weekend. The cards were a bit more than some could handle. I also need to figure out a way to track who does what during the Must Do parts - I decided that students had to do two of the three Must Do tasks before getting to do the May Do tasks. Now I have to figure out how to enforce that decision.
I have another round of centers due in a week - we are going to focus a bit on Martin Luther King, Jr. this time around. The listen center will have a recording of a MLK Jr. song that I have. I may ask questions for the interactive notebook - I may ask kids to draw something for the notebook, I am not sure yet. The learn center will include more songwriting and possibly a lyric scramble. The explore center will include a cotton ball search for words. There will also be the motor challenge and something manipulative to fiddle with for my kids who love fidgets. After that, February comes around with its focus on healthy relationships.
I am still trying to focus on therapeutic and educational goals (because, if I don't then I am not doing therapy), but I am finding that these goals are a bit more general than in my pure therapy sessions. I am struggling with that concept a bit, but I am also coming to terms with the fact that my schedule does not really allow me to focus solely on psycho-social developmental goals. So, now I can focus on educational enrichment and choice development two weeks per month and psycho-social development the other two weeks.
As I am going through January, I am also planning what we will be doing in June - giving myself a 6 month planning period to fully develop my themes and the available center tasks. This allows me to think of therapeutic goals and objectives without having to implement the TMEs immediately - I'm liking this structure at the moment. When June comes along, I'll have all the center stuff already organized and ready to set out - nothing that needs to be prepped because it will already be done. I think I'll make a "June" storage box to stash materials so they are all together and out of the way. I already have an "October" and a "November" box - the "December" box is coming together. "January" will be full after two weeks from now.
At this time, I need to make bigger signs for my staff members. After that, I'll keep going with the centers and keep figuring out what I need to change and adapt. Thanks for going along with me on this journey.
Happy Monday.
This came about because I have large groups of students placed in classrooms that have very little therapeutic rhyme or reason. Clients are constantly changing - kids leave and brand new ones arrive pretty much all the time. We never find a time where we stabilize.
I am trying something different. Two times per month, I am setting up centers for my clients to complete as part of their music therapy treatment.
I have three centers - Explore, Listen, and Learn. These titles simply give me a way to indicate where I want clients to go during the session. I also have two different task indicators for my centers - Must Do and May Do tasks. I completed one full round of centers for half of the school last week - the other half will do centers this upcoming week. This is due to the snow day and day off that I took last week - I didn't see some of my groups in regular sessions, so centers will last longer than I originally intended, but that's okay.
So, when clients move to a center, there is a card that has instructions on it. These instructions are different based on the types of client present in the session. The instructions are also for the staff members present (more about them later). There is a Must Do task - the one experience I want everyone to complete - and then there are May Do tasks - things that clients may choose once they are done with the Must Do task.
I am using themes to arrange these center tasks. This month, everything is based on "The Future/Occupations/Dreams." Next month's focus is "Healthy Relationships/Love." The music we listen to is based on the theme, and some of the Must Do tasks are also themed.
This week, the explore center included using my vocation fingerpuppets to select a future occupation (veterinarian won, hands down) or writing song lyrics about future plans. After that was completed, there was a sensory box to explore for tactile stimulation, blocks to play with, and/or motor challenges. I selected three songs from my January 2018 playlist and asked for preferences at the listen center. We are using Interactive Notebooks for that center - a way for my clients to write or vote or indicate preferences within a set format. The learn center had a Must Do task of playing Musical Note War with a peer. After that, students had an opportunity to play one of the guitars or ukuleles or write a song from scratch.
After every session, I wrote down my impressions of how it went. For a first time out, it went pretty well, but I need to make some adjustments.
First of all, having three centers was too much for some of my groups. Having to read instructions was a bit too much for most of the staff members I worked with this past week - I'll be making large boards for them to ignore this weekend. The cards were a bit more than some could handle. I also need to figure out a way to track who does what during the Must Do parts - I decided that students had to do two of the three Must Do tasks before getting to do the May Do tasks. Now I have to figure out how to enforce that decision.
I have another round of centers due in a week - we are going to focus a bit on Martin Luther King, Jr. this time around. The listen center will have a recording of a MLK Jr. song that I have. I may ask questions for the interactive notebook - I may ask kids to draw something for the notebook, I am not sure yet. The learn center will include more songwriting and possibly a lyric scramble. The explore center will include a cotton ball search for words. There will also be the motor challenge and something manipulative to fiddle with for my kids who love fidgets. After that, February comes around with its focus on healthy relationships.
I am still trying to focus on therapeutic and educational goals (because, if I don't then I am not doing therapy), but I am finding that these goals are a bit more general than in my pure therapy sessions. I am struggling with that concept a bit, but I am also coming to terms with the fact that my schedule does not really allow me to focus solely on psycho-social developmental goals. So, now I can focus on educational enrichment and choice development two weeks per month and psycho-social development the other two weeks.
As I am going through January, I am also planning what we will be doing in June - giving myself a 6 month planning period to fully develop my themes and the available center tasks. This allows me to think of therapeutic goals and objectives without having to implement the TMEs immediately - I'm liking this structure at the moment. When June comes along, I'll have all the center stuff already organized and ready to set out - nothing that needs to be prepped because it will already be done. I think I'll make a "June" storage box to stash materials so they are all together and out of the way. I already have an "October" and a "November" box - the "December" box is coming together. "January" will be full after two weeks from now.
At this time, I need to make bigger signs for my staff members. After that, I'll keep going with the centers and keep figuring out what I need to change and adapt. Thanks for going along with me on this journey.
Happy Monday.
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