Using Music as a Tool

In my Kinder classroom we can often be found singing.  Kinders love music, and are very forgiving of my less than American Idolish voice.  (I'd be in the blooper reel...)  Our classroom is filled with tools for my students use in their quest for knowledge, and I often see *hear* them using songs to help them to figure things out.  We recently got our six boxes of Jolly Phonics and have been having fun with the cute songs and motions.  I can't wait to use Jolly Phonics next year beginning on day one!  I can see already that it will prove to be a smart purchase!

In addition to the kindergarten standards, we sings songs to learn how to spell words, remember classroom rules, and understand math skills.  When we were working with ten frames to make numbers to twenty, I came up with this little ditty:  (Sung to She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain)  When a ten frame is filled up, you have ten, when a ten frame is filled up, you have ten, when a ten frame is filled up, when a ten frame is filled up, when a ten frame is filled up, you have ten!  Very catchy!  I think we sang it about twenty times one day.  (The following day several kiddos said that they had it 'stuck' in their heads - YAY!)  Another song-tool that came to me one day was to sing the "Story of Five" to the tune of Are You Sleeping? 

I wanted to create a visual to go along with my "Story of..." songs, so I made this Growing Number Sense bulletin board set.  (Available for only $2.00 on TpT)  I am pretty excited about it because I made most of the clip art in it!  (Title page artwork is from www.mycutegraphics.com)  I still need to figure out how to make the background transparent, but I think it's pretty good for my first attempt. 

For a really great article on using songs as a teaching tool, go to Heidi Songs.  Her blog gives readers tons of information and ideas for using songs to help students learn to spell.  Be sure to check it out!