Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Math Out Loud

A nice way to help younger children to digest the meaning of numbers is through songs, rhyming games and poems.
Who doesn't remember "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly," "The Farmer in the Dell," "Over in the Meadow," or "A hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall." These songs, likely to make grownups groan, help kids to cement a variety of early math skills.

Here are a few examples:

Counting Forward:

Over in the meadow,
In the sand in the sun
Lived an old mother turtle
And her little turtle one
"Dig!" said the mother;
"I dig!" said the one,
So they dug all day
In the sand in the sun.

Over in the meadow,
Where the stream runs blue
Lived an old mother fish
And her little fishes two
"Swim!" said the mother;
"We swim!" said the two,
So they swam all day
Where the stream runs blue

Counting backwards:

99 Bottles of beer on the wall
99 bottles of beer
you take one down, pass it around,
98 bottles of beer on the wall.

Size order: There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I dunno why she swallowed that fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly -
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a bird.....(and so on)

"The Farmer in the Dell" also has size order in the song.

Young students don't have to slave over endless worksheets in order to learn math. We can keep it fun!

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