Electronic music is not often considered a vehicle for young children to explore music or mathematics for that matter.  At Catherine Cook School, where I am the Director of Education Technology, I oversee our AV Studio which is equipped with a sound proof recording room and separate editing room.  In the editing room we have various controllers and launchpads for our older students to explore mixing electronic music.  We are heavily invested in providing any opportunities we can for our students at all ages to explore creativity in all subject areas.  These devices of course are incredibly too sophisticated for younger children, but we have identified entry points to mixing music for our youngest learners.  A few include:

DJ Mix Kids, an application that invites children to remix instrumental versions of nursery rhymes:

Keezy, an application that allows children to mix recorded music or start from scratch and record and mix their beats and lyrics:

ButtonBass provides users with the ability to turn on cubes which have a certain sound assigned to them.  When combined, having multiple cubes on simultaneously, interesting and fun music is composed.  In order to turn off the cubes, depending on the device being used, simply tap the particular cube or click it with the computer mouse.

Here is a quick video demonstration using the web version:

ButtonBass is available:

Web: www.buttonbass.com, Free

App: Android, Free

Note: This resource is solely instrumental music and sound.

The web version provides access to cubes in a variety of genres including:

• Electro
• Trap
• Electronica
• Reggaeton
• Dubstep
• Hip Hop
• House

Consider the following as a list of possible challenges to use with ButtonBass:

• Create a pattern of cubes turned on/off
• Turn on as many rows of 3 cubes as you can
• Turn on as many corners as you can
• How many cubes can be turned on without any two cubes next to each other both being on?
• Turn on all cubes on one entire side of the cube?
• Turn on any cube that has five of its sides up against another cube.
• Turn on a 4-square

What challenges can you come up with?

This particular exercise gets children thinking about spatial sense, patterns, and geometry in a music composition experience.  When I have used this resources in the past, I often create “dj pairs” so that children can work together to tackle the challenges and appreciate their successes as well as the music they are co-creating.

If children find that a particular combination of cubes turned on is worth revisiting at another time, users can turn on the keys, “SHOW KEYS”.  This will indicate with keys on the keyboard to push to turn on that particular cube.  Taking note of these keys turned on will make it easy to recreate the particular sound again.

Young children are usually up for the challenge of an exciting game whether it be a board game, hide and seek, or simply guessing something.  Scavenger hunts provide children with the opportunity, at its best, to develop skills around collaboration, observation, and communication. Taking technology out of the home and the classroom provides children with an authentic way to see how technology can help us in a variety of environments.  Consider creating scavenger hunts for these popular locations for children:

• Grocery store
• Mall/shopping center
• Neighborhood walk
• Library
• Park/playground
• Museum
• Airport
• Restaurant
• Bus stop/station
• Zoo

For parents, the list above can be a great way to mathematically engage your child(ren) in errands and family trips.  For teachers, this list can provide a new way to engage children and their chaperones with a mathematical lens on a field trip.

Book Creator is an application which can be used to create and publish eBooks.  This application can be used to collect/capture images of found objects for a given scavenger hunt. For example, if a child was at the grocery store, the adult could have their shopping list which may include:

• 3 apples
• 1 gallon of milk
• 2 loaves of bread
• 5 bananas
• Half of a pound of deli ham*

*As indicated as “half of a pound”, this item used as a scavenger hunt item may be better suited for young children with a more solid mathematical foundation. 

For this example, in order to facilitate this experience, you will need:

• A hand-written grocery list
• A writing utensil
• A smart phone or device (Apple or Android)

The grocery list can be used as the same list for the scavenger hunt.  The adult and the child(ren) can work together to find the items on the list.  As they find the items, they can take a photo of each item with the device, adding one photograph per page.  As items are found, the child(ren) can cross them off of the list.  Along with the images taken of the items, children can write what they have found.

As well as photographs, there are other features that children can add drawings, typed text, audio recordings, and shapes such as arrows and stars.

Book Creator provides a very intuitive and open-ended space for children to collect what they have observed on a given trip. Once, completed, these eBooks can be shared as videos, PDF’s, and ePubs depending on how they are intended to be shared (social media, email, etc).

Book Creator is available on:

Chrome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tr6S-_ZlSc

iPad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVvLxkomU6k

Price: Chrome: Free, Apple: Free (with in-app purchases), otherwise $4.99

Consider your home or classroom curriculum and reflect on where an eBook scavenger hunt activity might enhance the overall experience of the unit.  If you are a teacher, try it out with your child or relative to see how it goes.  If you are a parent, try it out with your child and tell your child’s teacher how it went.

In 2016, I had the honor of being an Early Career Fellow for the Fred Rogers Center.  In this role, my charge was to develop a concept for an application that brought art, communication, and language together.  This open-ended application invites children of many ages to create stories independently or collaboratively without having to have their co-creator sitting next to them.  Once a child creates an illustration, they can record a narration and send it to a buddy.  Their buddy receives the illustration, listens to the narration and then can make any changes they want to the illustration as well as their own narration and send it back (up to ten exchanges). Take a look at this video for a quick tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Qqqph7Ta0

This application is currently available for iPad only.  There is an update in progress which includes adding the color brown to the crayon selections. Price: Free

One of most popular opponent views to technology in early childhood is that is isolates children from other children and valuable social experiences.  One of my goals with this application was to an experience where children can be creative together without having to be sitting next to each other.  Soon after this application was released I was overjoyed to see my 3-year-old daughter Lydia co-creating a scene with her cousin Jaelyn who lives in Appleton, WI. Their scene included all sorts of items, similar to an I Spy scene.  Jaelyn’s challenge to Lydia was to find 4 apples that she added to her illustration.  Lydia was then to circle those apples.  From there is turned into finding other characters that were added.

In this experience Lydia was able to meaningful engage with her cousin in a both creative and mathematical experience.  If we were to pull apart the skills exercised here, Jaelyn, who was five years old at the time had to come up with the challenge, identifying the specific number of items she chose, and then strategically place them in the illustration.  Lydia then had find those items and keep track of how many she had found as she observed the illustration.  Lydia then made an attempt to add her own items and assign Jaelyn the task of finding the items Lydia added.

In supporting children creating their own Number Challenges in ChromaKids, consider this approach to creating a plan:

1. Who do you want to send the challenge to?
2. What characters would you like to include?
3. What are the items you would like to hide?
4. How many items would you like to hide?
   1. Will there be more than one item?
   2. How many of each item?
5. How will your buddy let you know that they have found the items?
   1. A circle around them?
   2. A square around them?
   3. An audio recording telling where they are?
6. What will you say when you make the audio recording of your challenge?
   1. How will you make sure you include the full directions for your buddy?

You will be amazed to see what children can come up with.  Don’t forget to join in on the fun in creating these challenges!

Note: Strategies provided in all four of February’s blog posts can be facilitated in both the home and the classroom, as well as other contexts. 

Young children are often intrigued by the sense of magic that today’s technology seems to possess.  Though there is not magic in the devices, we can harness that intrigue to introduce new and innovative ways to explore mathematics using technology.  ChatterPix, created by Duck Duck Moose (also ChatterKid), is a tablet device application that allows for users to add a mouth animation providing a voice for a character. These animations are saved in the form of a video which can be shared via email, social media, text, etc.  This video shows a quick tutorial for how this application works:

Caption: At this time, ChatterPix is available for iPad and iPhone only.  If you are interested in ChatterPix on other devices, I encourage you to reach out to Duck Duck Moose, they are very responsive to feedback: https://duckduckmoose.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

Price: FREE

As you can see there are endless possibilities for how this application could be used.  As Director of Education Technology at Catherine Cook School in Chicago, I am always amazed by the ideas teachers come up with to support collaboration, creativity, communication, critical thinking, character, and other skill development.  We have used this application in a multitude of ways, such as providing a voice to familiar story book characters. In the consideration of early mathematics, children could use Chatterpix to create their own animated number stories.  Consider this process to help the child(ren) create a plan for their number story video:

1. Identify a character
   1. Will it be the child themselves?
   2. Will it be a favorite book or movie character?
   3. Will it be a brand new character they create?
2. What are the items being added or taken away?
   1. If it’s the child themselves, do they have a favorite toy? Food?
   2. If it’s a favorite book or movie character, what do they know about the character that could give them some ideas?
3. What is the story around the addition or the subtraction?
   1. Is this a true story?
   2. Is this a story made up in the moment?
4. How will the illustration be created?
   1. Pencil? Paint? Sculpture (clay)?
   2. Photograph of actual items and individuals?
   3. An application-based illustration?
5. Who and how would we like to share this video?
   1. Remain on family/school device?
   2. Share with family members or friends?
   3. Post to an eportfolio resource such as Seesaw?

In the example I created below, I decided I wanted to include myself in the video and then tell a simple short story of how I once shared a chocolate chip cookie with my sister which left me with two cookies to enjoy for myself.  Parents and teachers may consider creating their own number story videos to not only provide an example but to also get familiar with the application and discover the fun while enjoying art, technology, and mathematics. The most powerful experiences with technology is when multiple subjects or disciplines come together.

screenshot provided by Brian

Outside of number stories, what other ideas are coming to your mind?

Check it out here!

You can find them here. http://www.safespaceconcepts.com/

Take a look at the page called “Tools for Discovery” and explore the wonderful materials they have that support early math learning.  I love the huge Tic-Tac-Toe board

and the cooperative arch building set.

Tic-Tac-Toe is a game that even very young children can begin playing.  They practice taking turns, recognizing the symbols X and O, and exploring spatial relations.  Unlike older children, Tic-Tac-Toe often ends with a winner, rather than a cat’s game, but that is OK.  In order to really master Tic-Tac-Toe children have to be able to see more than one aspect of the game at once, which is nearly impossible for young children to do. It is actually much more fun to play it with young children and observe how committed they are to completing a row of Xs or Os.

The arch building set requires a certain amount of cooperation between children, which in and of itself, is difficult.  This kind of arch is especially tricky because it demands an understanding of the “keystone concept.”  I bet you know a lot of adults who don’t understand this concept.  Anyway, I think this set will provide a lot of satisfying play in a classroom.  The  blocks are numbered which provides extra clues to how to assemble the arch.  You may find that the children can build it successfully horizontally before they figure out how to get it together vertically.

Take a minute to check out these cool products and so much more.  I am afraid to look at the prices so I am recommending these products even though I don’t know how much they cost.  I didn’t want the cost to get in the way of my delight with the products.

Check it out.

What I love about this Blog is that he will write about things that you are thinking about.  He responds to all posted questions with answers that are easy to understand and links to pertinent sites.

This is a small business owner’s dream.

If you click on the Math link, you will find over 100 links to resources for teachers ranging from lesson plans and online activities to off-line activities and interactive opportunities.  This is a pretty terrific website.

Check it out.

If you click here you will find the home page for the interactive math games at www.pbs.org for children.  Some of the games require Adobe flash, but many of them don’t.  I especially like “Monkey Jump” where Curious George jumps when you click on him and counts out loud.  The Man in the Yellow Hat speaks to the players and provides the directions so reading is not required.  In fact, a lot of the Curious George games have spoken directions so that even very young children can play without too much adult supervision.

Check it out and let us know what you think.