music, therapy, and me

Every month, I walk to my front closet and take out one of my monthly boxes. In these scrapbooking boxes, I store month-specific visual aids, books, songs, and TME ideas to use during the month. There are lots of things in some of the boxes, and less things in others, but this is a place where I can store holiday-related things until they are appropriate to use. I opened April’s box towards the end of March to see what types of things were in it to use. It was pretty dismal to begin with – one Easter book, some empty animal eggs, and not much else to work with. My March box, on the other hand, had lots of books and visuals for St. Patrick’s Day and Spring things. That’s the way this storage goes – sometimes there are lots of things to use and other times there is just lots of space. I looked around me for some things I could include in the box for this upcoming month. As you know, I have recently reacquired some storage space in my music therapy clinic that had originally had a d...

I have spent years and years using a couple of sets of vinyl frog beanbags for lots of things - balancing, body part identification, Down By the Banks games, tossing, you name it. Yesterday, though, I came up with a new idea and put it into my TME database. Some background information. Our new school social worker is doing a program using the Zones of Regulation . This program works so well within my current outlook of what music therapy should be for my clients, that I am trying to use it at least once per month. There are four zones - red, green, yellow, and blue. I happen to have frogs in each of these colors (and others besides), so the frogs and the Zones happen to be an easy match. It was easy to take a familiar children's song (which I know as Gunk Gunk, but others know as different songs) and do some lyric alteration to make it fit the Zones. The group that I tried to do this with yesterday was not having ANY of it, but I think I'll be able to get some others engage...

Ah, systems. I often think about this particular post series during the week as I go through my regular routine. The thoughts that go through my head include things like, "is this a system?" and "is this even interesting to anyone other than me?" If the answer to both questions is affirmative, then I figure out what to write about. Lately, I've seen queries about how people arrange their instrument storage, so I took a look at my system of organization. Here it is... Just like everything else in this series, this is just how I do this task - it is not a recommendation or requirement or even a strong suggestions. It is simply my way of doing things. These posts are meant to give you a glimpse into one way of being a music therapist - not THE way of being a music therapist. Find YOUR way and make it work for you. If things aren't working for you, then look at all the ways and find the combination that you need to do what you need to do in your space. S...

It is Sunday, so it is time for me to unpack a routine, a procedure, or "the way I do things" into a bit more detail and try to find some sort of justification for why I do what I do the way that I do... Today, I am going to unpack the way that I organize things using color. I color-code lots of materials and ideas in my environment. I find that I respond more quickly to materials when I can easily identify their purpose quickly, so color lends itself to quick recognition for both me and most of my clients. The only clients who have difficulty with this type of system are those with various forms of color-blindness, and I have materials that they can access as well. I really do use color as a shortcut, and most of the ways that I use these colors are completely personal and are a trick for me rather than for anyone else. The first way to use color is to help organize multiple sets of identical visual aids. This is where the color blind consideration comes into play. I...

  I went to a teacher supply store yesterday, and spent about $40 on teachery things. This is one of my favorite things to do, and I was able to find some things that I needed or just wanted for my current music therapy classroom. Here's a description of my haul: Music Basics large poster set: I have several walls in my music therapy room that could be used for incidental music notation and theory learning. This poster set will help with that. It has three pieces that specifically cover staff notation - something I cannot seem to teach my students to understand. I think I may put it on the Word Wall - Velcroed to the wall because my students seem to lose interest in pulling things off the wall when they are Velcroed rather than taped or stapled...   Dry Erase board erasers - These are my favorite dry erasers and they were on sale! I can't find these any place where I am, so I tend to purchase them when I can! I bought three!! Three! I like these because they last me much ...

Do you have an inventory of your music therapy materials? It is a tool that can be invaluable if disaster ever happens. I have a partial inventory, and I think that I will focus on making my inventory more complete this year. The first of the month may be a good time to update the inventory, so I will work on that this morning. I have an inventory of instruments. It is not complete, but I did arrange for storage a couple of years ago, and I counted everything at that point, so I only have to add the instruments that I have purchased at conferences over the past two years to make that more complete. My problem? Oh, I have way too many books of music, visual aids, file folder activities, children's books, and other types of resources that are not listed on the inventory as of yet. Listing these things will take time, but it will be worth it in the long run. I use a simple Excel document to track my inventory. I list the name of the instrument, the type of material it is, ...

I need a picture to change my default. I have made a decision. This decision is not monumental, and I know people are out there who have been telling me this over and over again, but it took a post on social media and my subsequent response to finally encapsulate all things about this decision and make it easy to make in this moment, right here, right now. I've been on the fence about something for the past three days, but no more. On Saturday , I wrote about a giveaway that I want to do. You see, I like the idea of giving things away to deserving folks who may need a pick-me-up in the form of someone nominating them to get some goodies in the mail - for music therapists, by a music therapist. I've had two people respond, and both wanted to nominate themselves.  Not the point of the giveaway, folks. I want people to think of others rather than thinking of themselves. If you really want one of my products, then pay the money. Seriously. I price my things VERY fairly...

Stuff is threatening to take over my life - yet again. I try to fight it back every so often, think that I've found something to help me in this journey, and then watch as the stuff just takes over. I know why the stuff is so overwhelming, and I know the habits that I have that are contributing to this situation, but I seem to prefer stuff to order and maybe I just like to organize...hm. I had an internship applicant come into my office on Monday. Now, I had arrived early at work, cleared off my desk, and tried to straighten up as much as I could before that applicant arrived. By the time we were doing the official interview, however, the desk had stuff on it and things had crept out of their spots. I tell all applicants that my office is always cluttered and is sometimes VERY cluttered. I used to work for a principal who said that she only told one lie during interviews. That lie was that her desk never looked like it did during interviews - it was always much cleaner than the p...