1. Most people remember learning some facts by listening to music, whether it involved memorizing state capitals or learning how to add and subtract. In this video, teachers talk about how they use music to help them teach math to students. Notice the variety of mathematical concepts that the teachers address with music.
What benefits do the students and teachers experience by learning through music? What advantages or disadvantages would there be in using music activities to teach content in other subjects? Which types of content do you think can benefit most from being combined with music as an educational tool?
2. Music activities in early childhood often include an element of movement and dramatics. For example, the children in the video acted out the story in the song Five Little Monkeys. What other examples of combining music and movement and/or music and drama have you experienced or would you plan to use with young children? What skills would the children be able to develop in these activities?
the video
[ Music ]
>> Three little monkeys jumping on the bed; Nana fell off and bumped her head.
>> Exploring math through music and movement is very natural because children learn through play and music is fun and it’s non-threatening.
>> How many monkeys are left now?
>> Two.
>> Two. We got one, two.
>> They might not understand that they’re learning all these math concepts and working these things out through their bodies. They can explore math through their bodies and through their movements.
>> Six, seven, eight, nine, ten; then I let him go again. Why?
>> Music in itself contains a lot of mathematical concepts in its basic structure. Elements of music such as steady beat, rhythm, harmony, melody, all of those kind of things can help to develop mathematical concepts such as one to one correspondence; patterning, sequential order, spatial awareness.
>> There are a variety of ways that math related music and movement activities were implemented into the lesson today. At the whole group we did five little monkeys jumping on the bed. It was more of a visual so the kids could get more of a concept of counting and subtraction from five all the way down to zero, and this was a very fun way to teach subtraction to the children.
>> The benefits of using a song in that way, for one it’s fun and we know that children learn best through play and within the context of our song you’re getting multiple concepts.
>> In the tambourine activity today there was the concept of the order that it takes to actually put the tambourine together; the steps, you know, first we have to do– get the plates. Second we have to staple them, and we have to leave space for them to put the beads inside. So and there was also– I heard a couple of children saying I need more or I need, you know, take some out, there’s too many in here. And so the concept of more versus less, sequential order, those kind of things were incorporated in that activity today.
>> Okay now we’re going to staple it.
>> I did mine. I did mine.
>> See, now you get to shake it. All done with yours. Some kids chose to count the beans, which helped for their counting. Who remembers the song one, two, three, [inaudible]? Who remembers? Does anybody remember it? Okay so then I’ll sing it and can you guys play your instruments for me? Yeah. Aleah [phonetic] can you shake it and shimmy for me then? Yeah, ready. And then at the end we were able to sing a song and they were able to use their instrument that they created. Four, five, one side [inaudible] fish alive; six, seven, eight, nine–
>> Alligator alligator sitting in the swamp, how many pizzas do you want to chomp? Ready again, ready. Alligator alligator–
>> Another center that was available was another teaching table with Mr. Chad. He had an alligator song for the children to teach them the concept of more than and less then. He used props; he had the pizzas and the kids had to tell Chad which one was the greater one.
>> How many are o– how many pizzas over here, Gabriel?
>> He’s going to open his mouth–
>> How many? Count– start right here.
>> One, two, three, four, five.
>> Oh try again.
>> Are we going–?
>> Let’s count them together. Get your pointer finger out and we’ll count them again, real quick. Ready? One, two, three, four, stop. How many?
>> Four.
>> Four, good job.
>> In the alligator activity today the children were introduced to two quantitative terms, more and less. The role in the song was to have the alligator eat more pizza as opposed to less.
>> He likes to eat a lot of pizza. Can you make him eat a lot of pizza Gabriel? Eat that. So you think this one has more?
>> Yeah.
>> Does this one– yeah. It’s greater than the pizzas over here.
>> The audio listening center was also available for the children, and at that area they were able to hear the music, feel the rhythm of it and they were able to express what they felt by drawing; some kids were able to draw and illustrate what their feeling was for the day. The benefit for the children of listening to music directly would be it’s more soothing for them. Sometimes it just relaxes your body, gets them into another place, and it’s more of a piece of mind for them. After all the children were able to finish out the centers we met back again at the rug. There I was able to show them a Spanish song; it was a counting song for them.
[ Foreign Language Spoken ]
Who thinks they can sing that song with me?
>> Me.
>> I think I can do it. You can do it? So I would say it in Spanish once, then I would have them– and I’ll show my visual for them and so like that they knew like what number I was saying. And then they were able to join me and learn the song, learning numbers in a Spanish way.
>> The multi-cultural math song where they were counting in Spanish can introduce children to a new language who are not Spanish speaking. And then for those children who are Spanish speaking it can reinforce and support what they’re doing at home in their language.
>> So now I’m going to be calling my friends to line up. So Makayla you will be first, okay. You could be first. You could go line up on the green line first. After we were done with our song at the rug the children were allowed to line up. There is a special language that goes along with math; when the children were lining up I used the word first for the first for the first child. Angie you’ll be right in the middle. You’ll be right behind Josh. I usually try to use transitional activities to help for math. For example, when we lined up today the kids all lined up, I called off the first number, then they had to continue until it got to the last one and the kids were able to see who was the first one, who was the last one. Zuri is first, Makayla’s right in the middle, and Davian [phonetic] is last. I’m going to count off my friends okay to see how many friends do we have in line. One, can you repeat it after me?
>> One.
>> Two.
>> Two.
>> Three.
>> Three.
>> Four.
>> Makayla?
>> Five.
>> Six.
>> Seven.
>> Good job.
>> Eight.
>> Eight.
>> Nine.
>> Good job. Ten. Say ten.
>> Ten.
>> Good job. A little quicker now. Ready, one more time. Zuri one.
>> One.
>> Two.
>> Three.
>> Four.
>> Four.
>> Five.
>> Five.
>> Six.
>> Seven.
>> Eight.
>> Oh your turn.
>> Nine.
>> Davian? Ten.
>> Ten.
>> Good job friends. So– the advice that I would give any teacher on the topic of incorporating math with music and movement would be just to make sure she has visuals, has props, and very enthusiastic in order for them to have a better understanding of the concept that she’s trying to teach them.
>> Which one has– which one has more?
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