Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Music Everywhere















During September's LEARNING IMPROVEMENT DAY, elementary music teachers were challenged to spend a day focusing upon the integration of mathematics and mathematical concepts into their instruction. As musicians, we all know that a natural connection exists. As educators, it was important to actually identify current connections. For example, Nancy Nole shared a collection of songs she compiled/wrote with a "math" focus, including:

Add These Numbers
Recognize Doubles
The Dollar Song
Five Pennies Make a Nickel
Donna Knudson shared with me a video of a recent 4th-grade program she directed, "On Fire With Math." Songs included:
Geometry
40 Performing Bananas
Shula (a franctions song)
Washington Rondo (a song comparing math and musical patterns)
With all PSD K-5 students following the same content schedule in the newly adopted Growing with Mathematics series, teachers can count on topics of study such as:
Identifying and Creating Patterns (Kinder)
Modeling one-half and one-fourth (First grade)
Using Patterns to Explore Number Relationships (Third grade)
Relating Fractions and Ratios to Music (Fifth grade)
being taught during the same week for a given grade level throughout the district. Knowing the topic of study in the general classroom, music teachers can connect musical skills such as knowing patterns of sound and silence, reading rhythmic phrases, or identifying musical notation such as measures and time signatures with some of the mathematics instruction taking place in the general eeucation classroom. How interdisciplinary!
Elementary music teachers maintain that music instruction touches all the content areas. Some are just "closer fits" than others. We are committed to music education as an important "stand alone" curriculum, but want to demonstrate how interdisciplinary our approach can be. Take a look at the "Music Everywhere" bulletin board display posted outside the music room at Brouillet Elementary above. Melanie Florian and Heather Provencio show that MUSIC instruction can integrate math, language arts, science, reading and culture.

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