The Monster Mash...An Idea in Development
I don't do much to celebrate Halloween. It has never been my favorite holiday, and I am rarely home that evening to be able to do anything. I don't know anyone in my apartment complex, and I refuse to open my door to people I do not know. The only thing that I really like about Halloween is the chocolate!!
So, when it comes to session planning, I do very little about Halloween. I change all of my major songs to minor keys and modes, making things sound "spooky" and giving me a music theory challenge. That's about it.
I have several reasons for this. We have some students who do not celebrate anything due to religious reasons, and we have lots of students who have difficulty discriminating between "real" and "pretend."
This year, however, one of my personal goals is to focus on more emotional exploration and processing with my students. So, I am trying to develop new ways for us to explore our feelings and responses to those feelings. This has been a bit easier for my students on the higher end of cognitive function. I can find all sorts of resources, references, and ideas for how to engage them in emotional awareness and interaction. It has been much more difficult for my clients who have less abstract reasoning and higher executive function.
...but, I now have an idea.
I am going to make some large monster faces (nothing too scary). They are going to be laminated and scattered around our therapy space. We are going to name each face, labeling it with an emotion that we feel. Then, we are going to sing The Monster Mash written by Bobby Pickett and Leonard L. Capizzi. We are going to mash the monsters with our feet as we sing about our emotions. Ooh, maybe it would be better to label our monsters with responses to emotions rather than the emotions themselves. Ooh, then we could talk about what society expects us to do when we feel angry or frustrated or sad. We could stomp out the responses that are not considered appropriate...
This is a glimpse of how my brain works when I'm developing a therapeutic music experience (TME).
Time to actually write this all down in my TME file.
***UPDATE: Here are my "anger monsters."
Time to laminate and get ready to run the TME!
So, when it comes to session planning, I do very little about Halloween. I change all of my major songs to minor keys and modes, making things sound "spooky" and giving me a music theory challenge. That's about it.
I have several reasons for this. We have some students who do not celebrate anything due to religious reasons, and we have lots of students who have difficulty discriminating between "real" and "pretend."
This year, however, one of my personal goals is to focus on more emotional exploration and processing with my students. So, I am trying to develop new ways for us to explore our feelings and responses to those feelings. This has been a bit easier for my students on the higher end of cognitive function. I can find all sorts of resources, references, and ideas for how to engage them in emotional awareness and interaction. It has been much more difficult for my clients who have less abstract reasoning and higher executive function.
...but, I now have an idea.
I am going to make some large monster faces (nothing too scary). They are going to be laminated and scattered around our therapy space. We are going to name each face, labeling it with an emotion that we feel. Then, we are going to sing The Monster Mash written by Bobby Pickett and Leonard L. Capizzi. We are going to mash the monsters with our feet as we sing about our emotions. Ooh, maybe it would be better to label our monsters with responses to emotions rather than the emotions themselves. Ooh, then we could talk about what society expects us to do when we feel angry or frustrated or sad. We could stomp out the responses that are not considered appropriate...
This is a glimpse of how my brain works when I'm developing a therapeutic music experience (TME).
Time to actually write this all down in my TME file.
***UPDATE: Here are my "anger monsters."
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| This guy is my favorite... |
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