Supplemental Sunday: Make It Large

I spend lots of my visual aid time in making file folder activities. I like having everything that I need for enhancing my therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) contained in one small folder. It makes for compact, comprehensive visuals that supplement the TMEs that I present, but there are times when you just cannot use a file folder to get a group of clients involved.

In those cases, I take the same idea and make it larger! Have a file folder puzzle game? Make it huge! Have a file folder board game? Make a life-sized version!

I just had an idea for an instrument identification and playing version of Candy Land. I will make large and small versions of this game. The players are prompted to move either via a die with instruments drawn on it or through choosing cards. They have to identify the instrument, move to that instrument, and then play that instrument the number of times indicated on the card. I could make this in file folder version and in life-size version.

I am going to be working on teaching notation next week. This game could assist in relating symbol to object identification concepts that are necessary in order to start to understand the concept of music notation. I wonder if my littlest clients will get the idea. I know my big clients will.

The problem with large versions of smaller things is that the large versions tend to take up more space. So, I need to make the larger versions multi-functional. So, the large version will include pictures of instruments that I can use to compose music, use during scavenger hunts, and use for this game. Or, I may just leave the idea of visuals completely off the table and only need pictures for my die. I can then use the actual instruments to indicate the places where people need to move to...

This is an example of what my brain does when it is engaged in creative thought and reasoning the day after the Online Conference of Music Therapy. It spins from idea to idea.

To recap...

I am going to make a game for my clients to play that will address symbol-object identification. The small file folder version will include pictures of common instruments in a board game format. To move around the board, clients will toss the die, move their marker to the next example of the instrument pictured on the die, and then play the instrument as indicated on the board. The large version of the game will include the same instruments but more of them. Instead of pictures to place on the floor in a board game pattern, I will place pieces of paper with numbers on them. On top of each piece of paper, I will place one of the instruments pictured on the die. We will still use a die (but it will be a bigger one, and modified so it is easy to see from around the room) to indicate where each group member will land. When a client rolls the die, they will move their entire body to the next instrument in the line. They will then pick up the instrument, play it the indicated number of times, and then wait for the next person to roll. 

Ooh, ooh! To make this more complex, I can have them go through an entire "rhythm line" by rolling the die more than once, writing down the instrument pattern, and then letting them go through the instrument line in the pattern they rolled. That would pull in the notation element.

There you go. No pictures of supplementals/visuals today, but a brand new game to play with clients!!

Happy Sunday!