The Giving Tree Intergenerational Preschool Program | Jay r sunde

For improving the well-being of elderly adults—by bringing them together with children. The Arbor Terrace assisted living facility in Alpharetta is typically a pretty quiet place. But on Wednesday and Friday mornings, the space is filled with an unexpected sound: the excited chatter and squeals of young children. At the Giving Tree Intergenerational Preschool Program—a pilot program implemented last January by the George Center for Music Therapy—classes of four- and five-year-olds join residents for weekly sessions of singing, playing instruments, and generally getting to know one another.

“Let’s pass out scarves to our adult friends!” chirps Melissa Sorensen, a music therapist with the George Center, who runs the program. About a dozen seniors sit in a circle, along with five kids ranging in age from toddlers to kindergarteners. (In the summertime the program morphs into weekly drop-in sessions for local children of all ages.) Today Sorensen is leading the group in a picnic-themed musical activity, and she wants the seniors to wave the scarves up and down while the kids pretend that they’re flying kites. Mary Poppins’s “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” plays over a set of speakers. During the school year, the ratio of seniors to kids is one-to-one, and some of the residents are jockeying for the children’s attention. One resident slyly tosses her scarf on the floor and asks a curly haired three-year-old girl to return it to her. The girl looks unsure but timidly complies.
“At first some of the kids are fearful,” says Sorensen. “Even if [the residents] are high-functioning, if they have disabilities or walkers, it can be kind of scary to small children. They don’t really know what to make of it.” To help reassure the kids and encourage connections, Sorensen initiates lots of games and activities in which young and old have to work together. She’ll ask older residents to talk about popular music from decades past or their favorite songs from childhood. Read More.....