Music & Math Activities for Pre-K
Children that have not yet entered kindergarten can benefit from activities that integrate music and math. For the greatest effectiveness, these activities should be simple and concentrate on rudimentary math and music skills. You will need to guide children that have not yet entered kindergarten through these activities. Making these games as enjoyable and fun as possible will help keep the child's interest and ensure they learn useful skills that will help them increase spatial reasoning skills.
Sing a simple song with your child such as "Are You Sleeping?" Helping him to learn the song will enable him to learn singing skills, melodic pitch discrimination, and basic counting. Singing will help him develop language skills and learn to identify the spatial relationships between pitches as well. Singing to your child enhances the development of his spatial and abstract reasoning abilities. Providing this sort of early childhood music education will have benefits in indirectly related areas such as mathematics and science.
Children that already know how to count to four can listen to lullabies and attempt to clap the beat with her hands and if needed with a parent's help. Hold her hands and clap to the beat while singing. This will help her learn to internalize it. Make sure to accent the first beat so that she gets a feel for the main beat and pulse of the music. She should also be encouraged to walk to the beat of a song to help develop her motor coordination and to further reinforce the concept of rhythm in music.
Beat out short rhythmic patterns. Then ask your child to repeat them to improve essential pattern recognition and spatial reasoning skills that will help them with mathematics. An example of a simple pattern could be three-quarter notes played consecutively, or even with a rest between the second and third quarter. With young children, it is enough to have them beat the correct number of beats. As they get older persuade them to beat rhythms in time to further increase both their mathematical and music ability.
Cut a piece of felt into three large circles. The circle should have a diameter of about 17 inches. Cut one sheet in half and with a felt marker write in one-half note on each side. Cut another sheet into fourths and place a quarter note on each quarter. On the intact piece, write in a single whole note. You can teach children note values and how they divide into larger note values with this musical pizza. Show them that four slices of pizza, using the quarter note pieces, equals a whole note. Also, show them how two half notes fit in the space of a whole note. Play around with different note values and let them place the pieces in correct location.
Singing
Sing a simple song with your child such as "Are You Sleeping?" Helping him to learn the song will enable him to learn singing skills, melodic pitch discrimination, and basic counting. Singing will help him develop language skills and learn to identify the spatial relationships between pitches as well. Singing to your child enhances the development of his spatial and abstract reasoning abilities. Providing this sort of early childhood music education will have benefits in indirectly related areas such as mathematics and science.
Counting
Children that already know how to count to four can listen to lullabies and attempt to clap the beat with her hands and if needed with a parent's help. Hold her hands and clap to the beat while singing. This will help her learn to internalize it. Make sure to accent the first beat so that she gets a feel for the main beat and pulse of the music. She should also be encouraged to walk to the beat of a song to help develop her motor coordination and to further reinforce the concept of rhythm in music.
Patterns
Beat out short rhythmic patterns. Then ask your child to repeat them to improve essential pattern recognition and spatial reasoning skills that will help them with mathematics. An example of a simple pattern could be three-quarter notes played consecutively, or even with a rest between the second and third quarter. With young children, it is enough to have them beat the correct number of beats. As they get older persuade them to beat rhythms in time to further increase both their mathematical and music ability.
Musical Pizza
Cut a piece of felt into three large circles. The circle should have a diameter of about 17 inches. Cut one sheet in half and with a felt marker write in one-half note on each side. Cut another sheet into fourths and place a quarter note on each quarter. On the intact piece, write in a single whole note. You can teach children note values and how they divide into larger note values with this musical pizza. Show them that four slices of pizza, using the quarter note pieces, equals a whole note. Also, show them how two half notes fit in the space of a whole note. Play around with different note values and let them place the pieces in correct location.
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