Fun Friday - Things My Clients Have Enjoyed Over the Years

It is FINALLY FRIDAY, and I am more than ready for this day to arrive! I don't know about you, but the first week of a changed schedule is always the most difficult for me. Add in my current attempt to get accustomed to a new medication, and we have the setting events for an interesting process! 

Since it is Friday, I thought I would return to a title that I haven't used for a while now - Fun Friday! Here are some things that my clients (ages 5-22 with dual diagnoses) have loved - this week and in weeks past! Please note that I am not an affiliate partner with anyone who I promote, but I do receive a small part of the purchase price of anything that I post here that comes from my own Teachers Pay Teachers store - if it looks interesting, please consider purchasing your own copies for you to use. Nothing is priced very high!!


  • Round Bells -  These are upside down in the picture. You put the blue part on the floor and the bells spin around. This has been a great instrument to include in my music therapy clinic. These are currently around $20 USD on Ebay or about $24 USD at Walmart - order them because there is no guarantee that they will be in stores. I am thinking I may just invest in a couple more sets of these because my students enjoy them. I like them better than individual handbells because they do not have clappers to pull out and stretch until they are no longer functional.
 
  • Food Cards - This is one of my files, compiled from a great clip art collection that I have purchased for use for all sorts of things. If you ever sing about food, this file is for you! I Want to Eat comes with something like 96 different food pictures as well as labeled storage for each picture, room to make your own pictures, and a bonus song for you! I use this all the time with my clients to encourage them to explore the idea of food. We sort, we select, we sing about the foods we love and those we do not love as well!
  • I have another category picture product in my store - Animal Choice Boards - this file is set up in a similar way as the food card file. There are 72 different animal pictures, also from the clip art collection, and are arranged in loose habitat formats (so the ocean creatures are mostly on the same page). While we haven't used these as much as we use the food items, we are definitely going to be using them more and more. This one does not come with a bonus song, but it works really well with "If I Had A Zoo of My Own," another file in my shop!
  • We love using Chrome Music Lab as well. This is a selection of music apps that are either in development or are being beta tested. The favorite app for my client is Kandinsky. We spend lots of time drawing different patterns and hearing the app interpret those patterns into sounds.
What are your go-to fun things? Where did you find them? What materials or instruments can you not imagine being without in the music therapy session? All those who comment will get a bonus lyric sheet file sent to you, absolutely free!

 

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