It’s been an honor to bring patriotic “Memorial Day” Music Wellness themed sessions to energize, empower and engage senior champions of the Innovative Senior Champion Program at New Zion Baptist Church.
Our session began the “Memorial Day” theme session by greeting, moving and tapping red and blues conga shaker to a lively tune while incorporating each person’s name in the song.Then the senior champions were empowered to move their shakers in various rhythms, parts of the body, to increase range of motion by reaching high, middle, and low for spatial awareness and creativity. We discussed the upcoming Memorial Day holiday and what the holiday represents. We then sang “Johnny Comes Marching Home, Dixie, Battle Hymn of Republic” while in a marching tempo.
The large red, white and blue scarves were introduced to resemble the American Flag waving. The participants were invited to raise and lower the large scarf to the song “Wave on Old Glory” … then a small ball was placed in the center with the goal of keeping the ball in the center.
We then discussed the stars and stripes of the American Flag while singing “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” The sound shape drums were distributed … the participants tapped several patterns and rhythms on the sound shape drums, emphasizing starting and stopping together. Next the participants drew a picture of a flag or star on their drum.
We then played “Name that Tune Rhythm” to patriotic songs by tapping a rhythm to “Stars Spangled Banner, America Beautiful, This Land is Your Land, When the Saints Go Marching In”During the final “goodbye Happy Trails” song, everyone shared how they felt from the music session. Reflective comments included: “I LOVED IT, patriotic, beautiful, fabulous, spectacular” Music For Wellness #luvservingwithmusic
