The result was a lovely polyrhythmic beat. âWhat,â said Mr Kachua, laughingly, âyou mean musicians have to be able to count?â âYea!â came the response from the class.įinally, Mr Kachua passed out a set of smaller drums, this time with drum sticks on which he asked students to beat out half notes. Hesitantly, the students to whom Mr Kachua gave the claves fell into rhythm with the bodhrán players. Struck together, they make a bright clicking noise. Claves are a pair of short, hollow wooden sticks. After a few minutes, the students could strike them in unison, and hold the note for four beats. Another defined a whole note as âfour beats.â Mr Kachua passed out a couple of small hand drums, or bodhráns. Math Smartboard Activities for KG - check out the site for lots of other KG level activities : CSI MATHEMATICS: Mr. âThe circle is a whole note,â one cried out. ![]() ![]() âMeasures,â he said âare groups of notes for musicians.â They correspond to âsets,â which are what scientists call âa group a something.âĪ series of small circles on the SmartBoard represented whole notes. He began to draw a few crooked measures on the SmartBoard, and soon he was passing around instruments. âThe word âequalâ is key,â Mr Kachua said.īut Mr Kachua had not come to SHS to give a lecture. Fractions, Mr Kachua reminded the class, are not merely a parts of a whole. It took Ms Usherâs class a moment to accurately define a fraction. âMusicians work with fractions,â Mr Kachua said. In particular, notation governing rhythm forms a pattern of fractions. Musical notation is, of course, a series of patterns. âMathematicians learn to recognize patterns.â And, he said, âMusicians recognize patterns, too.â ÂA mathematical thinker always asks the question, âHow am I going to do this?ââ Mr Kachua said. The definition he arrived at serves just as well as a definition for âmusical thinkers.â ![]() âOne day,â he said, âI was sitting around with my scientist friends and we noticed that a lot of scientists are also musicians.â His question for the students was: âWhat makes someone a mathematical thinker?â Math Smartboard Activities for KG - check out the site for lots of other KG level activities : CSI MATHEMATICS: Mr. Another whisper, again particular to 10-year-olds, of âawesome,â circulated through the classroom. âI started playing music when I was 5 years old,â he said. Ms Usherâs students whispered out âcool,â as only 10-year-olds can, with exaggerated vowels. I worked for years with elephants and wolves.â âIâve been a professional musician for 13 years,â he told the class, âbut before that, I was a chemistry teacher, and a zoologist. Mr Kachua had found a perfect segue into his program. âMrs Usher,â said one student, âdid you know sharks have teeth on their skin?â ![]() Ms Usherâs students were trying their best to settle into their seats when Mr Kachua arrived. In his 1976 hit, âSir Duke,â Stevie Wonder sang, âMusic is a world within itself / with a language we all understand.â But what precisely is the language of music? According to musician Mike Kachua, who recently visited Carry Usherâs fourth grade students at Sandy Hook School, musicâs language might just be math. On the first day of school we did a little craft activity related to the book The Kissing Hand.Thereâs Math In The Music And Music In The Math For this reason, I’ve started using the SmartBoard as a “directions reminder” for most activities we do. At the beginning of the year (well, for most of the year…) they can’t read directions and quickly forget what they’re supposed to do. Math SmartBoard Lessons: Composing Numbers, Decomposing Numbers, Number Bonds, Part-Part-Whole, Partitioning Teach an entire math concept on the SmartBoard This resource contains 66 slides to teach your students about number decomposition. I think that part of my SmartBoard love comes from the fact that I teach Kindergarten. Now, my laptop is rarely unhooked from my SmartBoard cables! I was not very creative in using it and honestly found it to be a pain to hook up. As time went on, I used it for simple things – having the kids play online games, showing video clips or websites, etc. Seriously though, the first year that I had a SmartBoard, I didn’t touch it for about the first five months. And now I can’t get enough of you! So sorry for doubting you.
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