PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Can you help me brainstorm activities to use music to help kids learn life skills and improve in their academics ?

(reference to websites are also appreciated)

I am an Occupational Therapist working with students are ages 5 to 10 that have the following cognitive disabilities:

1.) Speech and/or Language Impairments
2.) ADHD
3.) Learning Disabilities (exceptional trouble with writing, reading, or math)
4.) Fine Motor skill difficultiees (difficulty with writing, handling pencil)
5.) "Sensory" Issues (some of their senses have difficulty receiving and interpreting information, or they have an 'insatiable' need to keep moving, touching things, etc.)

As a result of these disabilities, each of my children is having trouble with their academics, and it's my job to increase their academic performance and access.

I plan to incorporate music and instruments into my interventions. I teach the children for 30 minutes, 2x a week, and have the following instruments:
- 2 casio keyboards
- 1 drum pad with 2 pairs of sticks
- 1 glockenspiel
- 1 metronome
- 1 small scale guitar

I'd like to use these 3 tools/props/motivators to help my kids develop the following skills (e.g. these drive the creation of the activity which should incorporate musical instruments):
- listening,
- discipline,
- study techniques,
- math concepts,
- fine motor skills,
- writing
- hand strength
- memorization,
- motivation
- pre-writing skills (fine motor control, learning to use recognize and recite ABCs')
- Band in a Box / Real Band / RealTracks

I must document that my interventions:
1.) are helping improve academic performance
2.) have concrete measurements of results, and proof of progress

Can you help me brainstorm activities to use music to help kids learn life skills and improve in their academics ? The following format would work best for me, but any thoughts are much appreciated. I'll start you off with one example:

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Skills: Listening, Counting Accurately in Sequence, Attention, Memorization, foundation skills for reciting in rhythm, cooperative play
Goal: Student will learn to count from 1 to 26 and recite the alphabet without errors in 3 out of 3 trials
Materials: 3 students,
1 glockenspiel,
1 metronome
1 singer

Activity:
Three students sit around a table and are given the following roles:
1. Time_Keeper - starts and stops metronome after all students are 'ready' (e.g. all eyes are on him, no talking)
2. Glockenspiel_Player - plays the "ABC" song at the pace set by the Time_Keeper
3. Singer - either sings the ABC song with glockenspiel player, or counts sequentially to notes of ABC song

Measuring Progress: 'score sheet' for each student documenting how high they can count accurately at designated rhythm without error, or how much of the "ABCs" they can recite sequentially without error

Simplifying:
lower the metronome settings
students given chart of "ABCs" or Numbers from 1 to 50 to refer to as they are called on to recite in sequence
work on the ABC song into smaller sections based on rests (ABCD EFG HI JK LMNOP...)
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what is the age range of the children

5 to 10 years old.

math songs
https://www.google.com/search?q=music+to...=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1357700187,d.dmQ&fp=70f902665fe3d8c&biw=1024&bih=682

Language Arts Songs
https://www.google.com/search?q=music+to...=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1357700187,d.dmQ&fp=70f902665fe3d8c&biw=1024&bih=682

reading comprehension songs for kids
https://www.google.com/search?q=music+to...=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1357700187,d.dmQ&fp=70f902665fe3d8c&biw=1024&bih=682

science songs for teaching
https://www.google.com/search?q=music+to...AA&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1357700187,d.dmQ&fp=70f902665fe3d8c&biw=1024&bih=682

may be some inspiration in these links
http://www.goodsitesforkids.org/LifeSkills.htm#.UPKtBx1EF0s

http://www.watchknowlearn.org/Category.aspx?CategoryID=640

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...ed=0CIsBENUCKAI

Wow Mike - great research terms to use, hadnn't thought of all of those, and nice idea links. I'll start checking them out ASAP. I would really love to take it to the next level with a comprehensive list of activities in the format I had suggested, centralized in one place and peer-reviewed for quality. Perhaps different forums would be more appropriate for this post (though it is and 'interdisciplinary post' - both music and education. "Music Therapy" may be closest, but I actually think the users of this site would have the best suggestions in this area : )

Im in a similar profession. My first thought was " life skills? Get them to carry the drumkit into the room". This is a joke, but it has a serious side there is a whole dimension of working together - perhaps called bandsmanship (a band where the drummer always carries all his own kit wont last long) its about dealing with conflict, sharing ideas, peacemaking, leading this kind of thing - social engagment, social engagdetment (a technical term used by seasoned sound engineers), you get the idea I am sure..

That's what I love about this forums - it turns out many people that go into my field or a similar one actually were musicians previously, or at least deeply attracted to music. I think I've been learning why that is. To learn an instrument takes a lot of practice of fine motor skills, and repetition - exactly what teaching my learning disabled kids involved. And often musicians - whether introvert or extrovert, like 'touching' others with their music - whether performing live, or creating stored sounds that give other people pleasure. Interested to know you profession, if you're willing to share.

Here's a nice little article with citations worth checking;
http://bluehenge1.hubpages.com/hub/The-Effects-of-Music-and-Academics

This aspect is a life project for my parents. If you need proof it's out there.
Many studies done.

Here's an organization that might be worth checking into: The DANA Foundation ( www.dana.org ). This is a philanthropic organization that supports brain research. Here's an article that proposes a music program for children in your targeted age group and its impact on cognitive development: http://www.dana.org/news/publications/detail.aspx?id=10752

With children of that age group, don't overlook Eurythmics.

Teaching them to find the pulse of recorded musics and to move in time to that, using various inexpensive Rhythm Instruments to get them to shake, tap, ding those instruments to the pulse of recorded musics or even musics p;ayed by the teacher or an assistant on a piano or a guitar, things like that.

Marching around the room in time to march musics.

Expand the marching gradually to include pieces not thought of as marches but that can be subdivided down to Simple Duple time anyway.

The beauty of Eurythmics is that we can instill the need to count, to find the pulse, to "feel" what is happening in the musics, "one, two, three, four" as compared to "one, two, three, one, two, three" etc. and when properly taught is a whole lotta fun for the children while they are learning without realizing it.


--Mac

I think Mac's suggestion is a good one. Movement would help with the need to touch and move constantly, the "sensory" issues you mentioned.

You might like to check out "Orff" body percussion, in case you don't know, they are rhythmic co-ordination exercises using combinations of finger snaps, hand claps, thigh slaps and foot stamps.

There are videos on you-tube showing them in action if you think it might help. I think the kids would enjoy them.

Teaching youngsters early on to find the pulse, to be able to decipher whether its in two, three or four time, to be able to count, is the singlemost thing that I find modern music teaching techniques too often ignore or don't do enough of, to the student's deficit.

Another Eurythmics method I use is to teach the basic conducting patterns for 2/4, then hand them each a stick and get them conducting to a march recording.

After the 2/4 wears thin and is basically under control, I introduce the 4/4 pattern and here we go again.

Then comes 3/4, with this one I start with the waltz, like Strauss' "Blue Danube" and after awhile with that will switch to "Bluesette" so that they can start digging that even jazz waltz tempo as well.

I also kill two birds with one stone when doing this, selecting recordings that, without them really realizing it, increases their Music Recognition skills. The important thing here is to know the repertoire and select the simpler things from it.

My final with kids is Serge Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" -- which gives a chance to introduce the sound of many of the orchestral instruments as well as the knowledge of a great piece of music that comes with a story. Each character is represented by a different instrument of the orchestra.

Here's a Youtube of David Bowie's narration of Peter and the Wolf:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpoizq-jjxs

After my classes, there isn't a kid whose been through them that does not recognize a Chalimeau Register Clarinet as "the cat". etc.

Bowie's recording is great for use with kids in these classes, BTW.

I teach these at our church summer school while my wife devotes her time to being the "schoolmarm" for the more academic endeavors there. But it all started a long time before that, when we made the big decision to homeschool our own kids. Long story short, we started up a homeschooling academy back then and ended up with about 20 kids on our hands daily. They're all grown up now.


--Mac

You might want to have a look at Beethoven's Anvil: Music In Mind And Culture. It's got a number of interesting theories about music, and why it's important. He argues that music is the result of of "coordinated neurological systems", and fundamentally music is a group activity. You might be able to ferret out some inspiration from there.


My younger son fell into the realm of "insatiable need to keep moving", which is one of the reasons we decided to go with home schooling. I recall an incident at a Sunday School class that a friend was teaching. Because she knew about his issues, she let him pace around in the back of the classroom.

One of the kids wondered why he got to walk around in the back and not be seated, so she asked him some questions about what she'd been teaching about. He was able to rattle off the answers without problem... and I suspect, while continuing to pace.

Of course, the other students wanted to know if they could wander around, too.

After years of drumming on the back of pews, he's now up in the front of the church hammering away on a cajon, so I've managed to channel some of that activity. But it's not something that we've ever been able to "fix". You've got a difficult task!