Taking One Idea and Growing It Into Six Ideas
One of my favorite self-challenges is to take an idea that I have and morph it into new ideas.
For example, I spent most of yesterday making letter and number cards for a classroom of students with diagnoses on the Autism and psychiatric spectra. As I was making these simple cards, I started thinking about other things they could do with little to no change in the materials. They could play memory match - match capital letters to capital letters, match capital to small letters, or small letters to small letters. They could try to pick letters to spell specific words, or rearrange letters into familiar words from anagrams. You could do the same types of things with the number cards as well. We could play Go Fish - "Do you have any 3's?" "Go fish." We could place them around the room and the student would have to go find the letter or number cards in sequence. We could label items with their beginning letter. We could do any number of things with these cards.
I do this quite a bit with the music therapy ideas and experiences that I have learned and that I create. I have a rule in my therapy space - I do not keep materials in my clinic unless I can come up with six separate things to do with the materials. If I cannot brainstorm six things, the material goes to my house to stay there. I need to transfer that requirement to my home as well to help me weed out some of the stuff that keeps arriving but not leaving...
This weekend, I am going to one of my favorite places in the world, "The Dollar Tree." I get to purchase things to make more work tasks for these clients, but I also get to browse for myself (I always do!). I wonder if I will find something new in the aisles that I haven't considered before. I'm ready to find out.
I entered a giveaway over at Bear Paw Creek. She is giving away a Pumpkin Balloon Ball and asked for ideas on how each of us would use it. I love those types of challenges. I wasn't able to come up with six of my own ideas, but there were more than six presented on the blog, so I could keep it in my music therapy clinic!
By the way, I love when music therapists get together and expand each other's ideas. [SHAMELESS PLUG HERE] That's one of the reasons that I'm giving a CMTE in Louisville this year. Sign up for More Than Lyric Analysis on Thursday morning at 7:30 (I know, I know) to take some of your ideas and expand them in the company of other music therapists who are looking for the same types of inspiration. [SHAMELESS PLUG OVER!]
I've found that each of us is very creative on our own, but our creativity grows exponentially when we collaborate with each other.
So, I am going to be spending some time coming up with some new ways of playing, singing, creating, and engaging my clients in music therapy. The work boxes will help spark that creative streak, and the CMTE will fan it into a raging flame - I'm certainly hoping!
For example, I spent most of yesterday making letter and number cards for a classroom of students with diagnoses on the Autism and psychiatric spectra. As I was making these simple cards, I started thinking about other things they could do with little to no change in the materials. They could play memory match - match capital letters to capital letters, match capital to small letters, or small letters to small letters. They could try to pick letters to spell specific words, or rearrange letters into familiar words from anagrams. You could do the same types of things with the number cards as well. We could play Go Fish - "Do you have any 3's?" "Go fish." We could place them around the room and the student would have to go find the letter or number cards in sequence. We could label items with their beginning letter. We could do any number of things with these cards.
I do this quite a bit with the music therapy ideas and experiences that I have learned and that I create. I have a rule in my therapy space - I do not keep materials in my clinic unless I can come up with six separate things to do with the materials. If I cannot brainstorm six things, the material goes to my house to stay there. I need to transfer that requirement to my home as well to help me weed out some of the stuff that keeps arriving but not leaving...
This weekend, I am going to one of my favorite places in the world, "The Dollar Tree." I get to purchase things to make more work tasks for these clients, but I also get to browse for myself (I always do!). I wonder if I will find something new in the aisles that I haven't considered before. I'm ready to find out.
I entered a giveaway over at Bear Paw Creek. She is giving away a Pumpkin Balloon Ball and asked for ideas on how each of us would use it. I love those types of challenges. I wasn't able to come up with six of my own ideas, but there were more than six presented on the blog, so I could keep it in my music therapy clinic!
By the way, I love when music therapists get together and expand each other's ideas. [SHAMELESS PLUG HERE] That's one of the reasons that I'm giving a CMTE in Louisville this year. Sign up for More Than Lyric Analysis on Thursday morning at 7:30 (I know, I know) to take some of your ideas and expand them in the company of other music therapists who are looking for the same types of inspiration. [SHAMELESS PLUG OVER!]
I've found that each of us is very creative on our own, but our creativity grows exponentially when we collaborate with each other.
So, I am going to be spending some time coming up with some new ways of playing, singing, creating, and engaging my clients in music therapy. The work boxes will help spark that creative streak, and the CMTE will fan it into a raging flame - I'm certainly hoping!
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