It is time to take you into an area of which you may not be familiar: proprioception.

Proprioception: Proprioception comes from input through your muscles and joints to let your body know where it is in space and what it is doing (Antes, 2012). Antes (2012) compares issues with proprioception with your leg falling asleep. While you can still see and move your leg it doesn’t seem to work the way you want because it is not receiving sensory input. For some of our children their body feels

On Sunday, April 22, ECMMA held a couple of workshops on Cape Cod, hosted by Meryl Vujs at Meryl’s Music and Arts. I “gave” the first one, although I feel as if the workshop was given to me! There is nothing like sitting in a circle with experienced teachers, and getting feedback on your work.

My workshop focused on some of the new songs (along with the neurological and movement theory behind them) from my upcoming CD/Book Set, Listenin’ Live. This projecthas been in the works for so many

“Did you like?”
“Look, the violinist is playing!”
“Ohhh listen to the flute!”

I listen to this sentences and many other when I conduct the Concerts for infants and toddlers in the Rome Auditorium and abroad.

The day before the concert I meet the parents for a conference and I say to them more or less: “This concert is FOR your children. We do not fear their spontaneous sounds, babbling and movements while we’re playing. It is instead very important that you, parents, never speak

Touch or Tactile: Tactile sensitivities can impact many of the children with whom we work. Antes (2012) identifies three types of sensory receptors. The first is to light touch. It lets us know if there is a bug on us or if a scarf or feather is brushing across our skin. The second is pressure touch. This lets us know not only how heavy things feel on our skin, but also lets us know what we are touching. The final type is sensitivity to temperature and pain. Together, these types of touch

At the end of February I was privileged to represent my profession in a round-table discussion at the Federal department of Education in Washington DC. The National Association for Music Education (NAfME), formerly known as MENC, sent out a request for representatives from the neighboring states and I was able to tweak my schedule and participate. The discussion focused on a new initiative, RESPECT (which stands for Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence and Collaborative

My previous conversation with Mary Ellen Pinzino about young children’s artistry continues here with Art Songs for the Very Young. While we do not receive many comments to our blogs, our tracking shows that Mary Ellen's conversations have been some of our most widely followed posts. Still, I hope that you, the reader, will join in the conversation - providing a richer base of questions on the topic.
 

Rick: You said that “Young children’s artistry is compelled by far more musically

Auditory: Children can present defensive or seeking behaviors here as well. Defensiveness can be displayed by a child covering their ears when they hear specific sounds, songs, or are in spaces with too much sound (such as the gymnasium). For these children, some sound can be interpreted as painful. Other children seek out sounds. They may place instruments right against their ears or lay their heads on the stereo speakers. They may also make sounds all day to fulfill this sensory need.

I haven’t seen The Hunger Games. It disturbs me that a story about children forced to fight to the death has become, overnight, one of the largest grossing movies ever.

But I’m a wuss. I have to admit that I didn’t even make it through the Harry Potter series. I read the first book pretty much in one sitting. But something about it didn’t feel right to me.

As I child, I read magic books by the score. E. Nesbit, Edward Eager, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Patricia McKillip and, of course, C. S.

Let’s start with visual sensory processing concerns.

Children can present defensive or seeking behaviors. Defensiveness can be displayed by a child covering their eyes when they go outside or when they’re in a situation where there is too much visual stimuli (i.e. too many pictures on the wall, too much movement, too many things going on at a time). Other children will seek out visual stimuli through movement of objects or body parts in their visual field. They may also sit very close to

I stopped at the grocery store on my way home from work, just before 8 PM - right when Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac airs on my local NPR station. So I turned off the engine, and listened to a poem.

Although my mind had been filled with the stress of the day, listening to the poem, I left my mind behind. Sitting in my car in the grocery store parking lot at 8 PM on a Wednesday night, I was at peace.

Do you remember a poetry book you had as a child? I had a magical one, an