The Power of Music!

So, I thought I'd share with you an example of the power of music for children who are non-verbal or with very limited language/communication (And, of course, music is wonderful for everyone else as well! :) 

I was working with a little guy on stringing large beads on tubing the other day.  I often make up simple songs describing what he is doing since it helps him stay focused and reminds him of how to do something.  However, I have been fading out some of the songs for small group time at this point to see if he is able to continue the task on his own.

Well, apparently, HE was not quite ready for this!  He began singing a song I made up and sing to help the children wait for their friends to get up from nap and get ready to get on the bus and go home. 

He sang..."Jeremiah, please get up, please get up, please get up.  Jeremiah, please get up, it's time to go on the bus."  (Usually when I sing it I leave off the word "bus" and the kids say it.)

Well, I laughed and told him that the song didn't really work since Jeremiah was already up and it wasn't time to go to the bus yet.  He stopped singing for a minute then started again with the same song:  "Jeremiah, please get up, please get up, please get up.  Jeremiah, please get up, it's time stringing beads!"

Now, of course, his friend was already up, so this part still didn't work, but he had replaced the original words to MATCH WHAT HE WAS DOING!!!!  (can you tell I was excited about this!?)

I had to keep myself from laughing as he sang this another three times since it was SO darn cute...AND smart! 

And to think, this little guy started in my room just over a year ago and was non-verbal!  He receives music therapy once a week and we do non-stop music in my classroom!  Another awesome anecdotal note I thought I'd share with you!

"Greatest Anecdotal Note of the Day"

Wow!  Today, a little guy in my room simply blew me away!  I decided during small group time to casually introduce a few letters with the wood pieces from Handwriting without Tears to him. 

I wasn't really expecting him to show much interest.  I figured we'd just explore the wood pieces, introduce the letter E and then make a few shapes with the wood pieces. 

Well, he did seem interested and engaged and said "my name".  Now, his name doesn't start with an "E", but I was encouraged by the fact that he associated the letter making with letters in general and his name!

He then, spontaneously, turned around and pointed to the labels on the shelf behind him and said "letter E"..."letter E", to each word. 

Well, I just about fell over the first time; since he actually HAD pointed to a letter E!  I think that was probably random since after that he was clearly pointing to the words. 

How impressive is that though!  He knew that all of those words had letters in them...just like the letter E is a letter!  And he generalized this knowledge and could verbalize that these were letters!

So, I introduced some paper and showed him how I wrote the letter J (which is the first letter of his name) with a highlighter.  I handed him a crayon and with some help he traced over the letter.  He was ecstatic!!  He kept saying "my name", "my name"!   We repeated this several times.  Each time he was more excited than the first!

I think we have another pre-writer on our hands!  Definitely going under:  "Greatest anecdotal note of the day!" :)