Music has always been a creative outlet and method of coping for me. When developing the 'Grow and Glow' Chill Room curriculum, I thought of different creative ways to teach social and emotional learning (SEL). Including music was a no brainer. I explained to small groups of members how music is not only for pleasure, but can be used for emotional regulation. Music can be categorized as a mind coping skill and has gateways to other coping skills, like dance, for example, which is a movement coping skill. The members shared that music helps them feel better when they are sad or angry, and increases their happiness when they're already in a good mood. In a previous lesson, I taught The Feelings Wheel, and the importance of being able to name your feelings. In this lesson, I challenged members to select an emotion that they don't know from the feelings wheel and create a song in GarageBand that embodied that emotion. Members asked questions, conducted their own emotion research, and learned how to utilize GarageBand. From this lesson, members are able to connect sounds to emotions and feelings while expressing feelings through music creation with the goal of improving emotional regulation.
I've attached three songs that members created spanning emotions such as optimistic, successful, confident, and abandoned. Hear how our members express themselves! Feel free to share reflections and what resonates with you!
Attach up to 5 files which will be available for other members to download.