The activities in this project are designed to be done by young children under five along with their parents. Since everyone is spending more time at home, I thought to create activities that could be done while at home. While my target audience is children with motor and communication deficits, the activities can be adapted to any child.

Before creating any activities, I interviewed a parent with a child with cerebral palsy. One of the first things that she mentioned about her child is that while he does have motor deficits, he also has self-stimulatory behaviors that are not always positive. One example she provided was that he bites himself at various times of the day. While I know that self-stimulatory behaviors are common in many children with disabilities, it never occurred to me that children with cerebral palsy experience this as well.

After speaking with a parent, one of the first things I decided my activities would focus on were a child's need to simply have fun. For children, learning through play is an important part of their development. The parent I interviewed told me that her child can become very frustrated when he cannot do things as quickly or at the same level as other children. Being at home, I am sure many parents can say it is becoming more and more difficult to keep their children occupied since they are not at school or daycare.

In addition to making my activities focused on fun, I also wanted there to be a focus on being able to communicate wants and needs effectively. While self-stimulatory behaviors were mentioned by this parent and are part of the activities' focus, communication skills are beneficial for parents to understand their children. Exhibited behaviors are challenging for the parents to figure out or navigate when there is difficulty communicating excitement, pain, frustration, preferences, and so forth. Throughout each of these activities, children under with developing language skills will be asked questions. As they learn and grow, they will have the opportunity to express themselves musically or verbally through the song associated with each activity.

To address communication and expression skills, my initial thought was to create an activity that talks about feelings and what situation they match to. However, this may be too advanced for children five and under so I removed the talking aspect. Through created songs, story songs, movements, and potentially pictures, children could learn how to say what they need while having fun at the same time. Two SEL competencies could be addressed in these activities, self-awareness and relationship skills. Through each music activity, I want to create a space where children can express what they want to do, try them out, and provide tools for parents who want the best for their children. 

The main purpose of my activities is facilitate a strong relationship between children and their parents, helping to facilitate communication between the two groups. All of this will be through activities that take minimal time to create or use items that can easily be found around the house. To determine that the need has been met, I will continue to use the created activities with clients I work with and make needed adjustments as they arise.