Making Something New

Yesterday, I was in the mood to create, so I started to play with an idea that I've had for a bit of time now. (NOTE: This was inspired by Pinterest which Sarah TOTALLY got me hooked on and who was been aided and abetted by my sister, Kelly, who only stays on the Education page - what's up with that?) Anyway, I am always looking for ways to get my clients to work on skills independently, and this seemed to be a good way to start!
 

If you do not know what this is, you are not alone!

Lapbooks are becoming more and more popular as a schooling tool. Kids are making them, home-schoolers are using them, and there are several patterns for music education lapbooks out there on the web.

I was interested in these books as they seemed to be extensions of one of my interests which is file folder experiences. What concerned me the most about the templates already available were that they had lots of envelopes, flaps, and pictures to lift up. These are wonderful, but I have a rule that anything I spend lots of time creating HAS to be laminated so it has a chance of lasting past one session. Another rule of mine? It can be no larger than a file folder since I have limited storage space for things. So, I started to experiment.


The first experiment was a lapbook about music instrument families. I started off well - I decided to take one folder, fold it in on itself, and cut flaps from each of the new covers. I then used my computer to print out some challenge questions and answers for my clients. Questions included, "Name an instrument from the Brass family," and "Which instrument family do you play by hitting or shaking?" I used some label stickers and decorative stickers to increase visual interest, and then got REALLY stuck!

The problem? I had absolutely NO idea what to do with the remaining parts of the file folder. I had an inside part as well as the back of the folder that had nothing on it. I try very hard to respect copyright and other legal restrictions, so had no pictures for the lapbook. The pictures that I draw are not always the best quality, so I stopped working on this folder. I'll finish it when I have some instrument pictures that I like...

 I absolutely CANNOT stop a project once I have started one, so I started a new lapbook centered around a different theme.

 This one was about manners. Several years ago, many of my classes wrote piggyback lyrics around manners. We turned these songs into Powerpoint presentations and offered them to the rest of the school. As far as I know, no one has ever looked at the presentations. Sigh. I still have all of the songs and all of the presentations and was trying to think about using a lapbook to use music to address nonmusical goals. I started looking around my Therapeutic Music Experience (TME) file, and voila! There were the Manners songs.
To make the lapbook, I followed the same procedure of folding the sides into the center line. I cut flaps and started to decorate. I printed questions about appropriate responses to specific situations. The inner part of the flap has the expected manner. The center of the folder has the lyrics to all of the songs. I used stickers again and lots of scrapbooking paper to add some color. 

 I laminated and trimmed everything and the lapbook is ready to be field tested with my clients. I think I have a group in mind, and I definitely have two young ladies in individual treatment who I will try this book on during their next sessions.

 Next time I do this, I will try to make something functional for my kids with pervasive involvement on the autism spectrum. The current lapbook is too busy visually and requires lots of reading - way too much for those kids. It is now time to go back into the contemplation mode of my creative process and start over...

 What to do next... hmmmm.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dear AMTA

Dear American Music Therapy Association: I am debating long and hard about remaining in this relationship. I have been in this relationship since college, and this is not a decision that I am taking lightly or without great cost.  I am not happy with what you are bringing to this relationship. Now, I have been a selfish partner over the past several years - mainly because I am not feeling like we share a common mission anymore. It is easy for me to place the blame on you, but I know that this is not all on me. I have tried to be invested in communication and support and understanding, but everyone comes to a time where enough is enough. I am trying very hard to decide if the benefits that you provide to me are worth the feelings that I have about where I think you and I are going. I am not sure that our destination is the same anymore, and this makes me sad. To be completely honest, I am only in this relationship these days for the music therapy interns. I don't think that is a hea...
Read more

Songwriting Sunday: Repetition

Image
One of the things that I find to be helpful with my client population (children, adolescents, and young adults with dual diagnoses) is repetition of phrases, lyrics, and music. As a result of 30+ years of working with this population in various iterations, I have found that my clients respond the most to songs with three repeated phrases to prime their responses with a different phrase to communicate the important part of the experience. DISCLAIMER: This is not a definite way to write music for clinical interactions. This is what seems to work well with my particular group of human beings. Don't go to your supervisors and tell them that I told you that this is the ONLY way to write music - It is NOT! You have to find what works for your clients and for their clinical goals. Since my clients respond well to this type of song, I tend to write songs in this format more than any other. What I have found is that my clients remember these songs more than the ones that I do in different f...
Read more

Being An Internship Director: On Hiatus

Image
It has been long enough since I have had an intern that I am seriously feeling like I have little to say on the subject. At the same time, I am currently writing Chapter 5 of my general internship handbook, so I am able to write about being an intern and what types of things to think about during this important time in our professional development. It is a strange place to be in, and it is one that is a bit challenging for me. Right now, I have had three vacant internship positions since the beginning of the calendar year. I will have a vacant position next month and that will be an entire year of rejected offers. In the past nine months, I have offered positions to three applicants who have declined. It is interesting how people complain that there aren't enough internship programs, but programs like mine are empty. I guess there aren't enough internship programs that pay large stipends (which mine cannot) out there. I get it. It is interesting to me how we have moved from an ...
Read more