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Jump to > Baselines | Developing music activities | Structuring sessions | Space and instruments | Tapping innate musicality | Developing social and language skills | Learning movement | Encouraging expression | Resources
Structuring a session
Begin your session with a specific and regular piece of music – consider using a greeting song.
Greeting songs
Greeting songs have multiple uses. Firstly, when a greeting song is used consistently for a particular child or group, it can offer security and comfort by signalling the beginning of a familiar session. It is symbolic of coming together, leaving other activities behind, and 'being in the here and now' together in music. This may help the children to transition from their previous activity to the music session.
You may use a 'Hello, 'Good morning' or 'Good afternoon' song that also encourages a specific response from the children and reinforces communication goals. On the other hand, if you are working with a child all day and have already greeted them in this way (hopefully in song!), the piece of music you use to open your formal music session may be very different.
As with all music, make sure your greeting song, and the way in which you present it, is age-appropriate. Take care to consider the developmental age of participants and the style of music that they prefer, and present the music in a way that also demonstrates respect for the children's chronological age and potential abilities.
Ordering activities
Your music session might involve singing, listening, moving, acting, and playing instruments, but this will depend on the purpose of getting together and the goals for the children.
A child with special needs may want to have the same types of activities presented in a consistent order each session. Remember that this consistency can be comforting and success-oriented for the children, even if you think "I did that activity last week – I have to come up with something new today". Look at the children's level of engagement to see if they are bored.
It might be helpful to use a pictorial schedule to remind them of what is going to happen when. You could make such a schedule by placing pictures or icons that represent each activity on a board or chart in the order in which they will occur. You or a child could remove each picture as the activity is completed and post it in a 'finished' box.
Laminating a chart allows it to be wiped and kept clean. Velcro can be useful for fixing and removing pictures easily.
One advantage of using a visual schedule is that you can show in advance that there will be a change in the session, maybe a different order or a new song. This prepares the child(ren) so they can anticipate a new experience and not be upset by it.
Farewell songs
Consider closing your session with a farewell song of some kind. It might be a 'Goodbye' song if you are leaving the group for the day, or have appropriate lyrics such as 'Music time is over' if you are continuing with other activities.
A regular closing song signals that the music session is over and it is time to transition to something else, leave the room, or whatever. A closing song which helps to centre the children can help in this transition. It is not realistic to end with high-energy song and then expect the children to be able to leave the session quietly.
Building repertoire
If writing your own songs to use for opening and closing sessions seems too difficult or intimidating, consider adapting a familiar song with new words. Many folk songs are suitable since they have only a few chords, and the melodies are repetitive and easy to fit words to. In addition, there is an existing repertoire of greeting and farewell songs – see books on resources list for ideas.
You could accompany on the autoharp or just sing unaccompanied. The most important aspect is to pay attention to each child rather than how well you are playing the accompaniment!
next: Defining space and using instruments
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