Sing and clap along to the tune of “Bingo.” 

There was a boy with dark brown eyes and Timmy was his name – O!

T – I – M – M – Y,

T – I – M – M – Y,

T – I – M – M – Y and Timmy was his name!

“Sing my name song next!” cries Evani.

“Please, can we sing my name song too?” implores another classmate of Timmy’s.

Do you play the Name Game? I simply take a familiar children’s tune, add a personal note if needed and spell out each child’s name to that tune.

I started playing this game more than 20 years ago because music plays a powerful role in brain development. One five-year study by a team of University of Southern California neuroscientists showed that music instruction accelerates brain development in young children—particularly in the parts of the brain responsible for processing sound, language development, speech perception and reading skills.

Children love the patterns and rhythms of songs. Setting words to music helps children learn them more quickly and retain them longer. Even a one-year-old will beam with pride the instant you start singing their tune. They may not be able to talk, but they know their name song!

Research also shows a connection between music and math in brain development. Musical patterns, rhythms and tempo make it easier for children to learn mathematical concepts such as sequencing, simple counting and patterns.

Emphasizing the steady beat of a song by clapping or moving to the music helps children master the concept of one-to-one correspondence (the understanding that each object in a group can be counted once and only once).

Music also helps build early literacy skills and promotes social-emotional development. The Name Game helps children learn through play as they explore the letters that make up each child’s name. When we start simply by inserting the letters of a child’s name into the Name Game, we give these letters personal meaning, which will incentivize the child to remember them.

As we play the Name Game, we are building a strong foundation for later literacy development activities such as letter recognition, letter names and letter sounds.

There is something magical about the Name Game and its capacity to keep children engaged for extended periods of time.

Musical rhythms sharpen developing attention skills. The fun of singing your own name song and the name songs of all of your friends can make learning joyful. The Name Game became a tradition at our center to keep the children entertained and happy while lunch was being prepared and served.

Here’s a “cheat sheet” to help you get started with the Name Game.

“The Wheels on the Bus” is a great song for three-letter names:

The letters in my name go J – O – E,  J – O – E,  J – O – E,

The letters in my name go J – O – E, 

That spells JOE!

Four-letter names work well with the “Happy Birthday” song: 

K – O – B – E, 

K – O – B – E,

My name is Kobe,

K – O – B – E.

“Bingo” is my go-to song for five-letter names.

Six-letter names work well with “Polly Wolly Doodle” or “Pat-a-Cake.”

Seven-letter names pair well with “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

Eight-letter names work great with the song, “Muffin Man”

Nine-letter names? Try “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.”

You get the idea! Let’s give it a try. Pick a child in your class (maybe the one who rocks your boat just a little bit, because we all have one and it’s to our advantage to have this child on our team.)

If you get stumped, head to your CD collection for inspiration and grab Taj Mahal, Ella Jenkins, Raffi or whatever song is a classroom favorite. This is the perfect opportunity to add music from the cultures that are represented in your classroom. Reach out to parents to ask for a favorite childhood song that you can match up to their child’s name. They will love you for it, I promise!

You can also use chants. The children who first played the Name Game in my classroom are in their mid-twenties now, but they still remember the song or chant that they used for each classmate!

Here are some examples to get you started:

M – A – D – I – S – O – N…Madison, Madison is our friend.

C – O – N – N – O – R…Our friend Connor is a soccer star!

Chants are a great place to start because you only need to rhyme with the last letter of the child’s name. You can also sneak the letters into the middle of the sentence if they have a hard letter to rhyme with, like the dreaded letter X!  Some letters, like W, will trip you up because that letter has three syllables. Take it slow, you won’t come up with these in a single night. Find a friend who can rhyme on a dime (haha) or a friend with a musical background. Friends like these can be extremely helpful when you are struggling with a name that’s difficult to set to music.

Each child believes they own their song, which they do. I try not to use the “Bingo” tune for more than one child in my class at a time. This may seem like an overwhelming task if you have a large class, so keep it simple. Maybe start with the first kids to be dropped off or the last to get picked up. Make sure you write down the tune and the words as they come to you. You will need your own cheat sheet in the beginning for reference.  

When children are actively listening to music, multiple areas in their brains are lighting up. By adding clapping, marching or other movements, we develop other areas of the brain. The more senses we use, the more we learn!

Give it a try. I promise you, it works like magic! If you’d like to add to my cheat sheet, make a comment below and we will start our own list to share with one another. Good luck!

Interested in other activities that help build early math skills?

• You’ll find some great counting songs in the Music and Movement section of our Noodle Cadoodle Counting lesson plan.
• Check out the Music and Movement section of our Monkey Mania lesson plan to pair music with counting and help children understand the concept of subtraction.
• Finally, our What’s in a Name? lesson plan offers more activities to foster the development of early math skills as children count, compare, contrast and graph the number of letters in their names. 

Click on Connect with Families on the left side of each lesson page, download the parent letter included with each lesson, personalize it for your class and your math curriculum for the week is complete!

“Can you read it again? PLEASE?” 

Frigid temps and gray days lead to lots of reading as we weather the winter season.

As February unfolds, I am thrilled to present a series of STEM books guaranteed to educate, enrich and entertain early learners while the snow flies.

It’s difficult to find books that balance exceptional educational content with engaging storylines, but these books deliver on both fronts.

Each book on this list is so good that you won’t mind when your young STEM explorers beg you over and over to “read it again“!

The Storytelling Math series features children using math during their daily adventures as they play, build and explore the world around them.

These delightful stories go beyond common early math topics such as counting and shapes to explore topics such as patterns, categorizing and spatial reasoning—topics that lay the foundation for later math success but are rarely included in early math books and learning materials.

This series focuses on math concepts that young children encounter in their daily lives. Packed with content that will introduce your early learners to patterns, spatial relationships and everyday math vocabulary words, these little gems also reflect the diversity of our world with characters, authors and illustrators from a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

Each book concludes with suggestions for further math exploration.

I love the whole series but the books featured here are our favorites!

Our most requested book in this series is Bracelets for Bina’s Brothers. This book has inspired discussions about siblings, educated us about the holiday traditions of our friends and neighbors, introduced us to patterns and engaged us in problem-solving activities. In this celebration of Raksha Bandhan (a Hindu festival honoring the sibling relationship), the youngest sibling, Bina, is determined to make bracelets for each of her three brothers. Vijay loves blue but doesn’t like green. Siddharth is fond of green but can’t stand orange. Arjun likes orange but is sick of blue. With three colors to work with, Bina works hard to get the bracelets just right. This book often leads to requests for beads as we work on our own bracelet patterns, which adds Art to our endeavors for a full STEAM experience.

As much as my gang loves bracelets, I love Usha and the Big Digger—a beautifully illustrated tale about a girl who loves trucks. This book addresses rotation, geometry and spatial relationships, along with looking at things from different perspectives. Cousins survey the same part of the night sky and see different constellations on a starry night. After they switch vantage points, they each see what the other has seen. As the cousins rotate, they see the Big Dipper rotate too. This book features Indian-American characters, as well as insights into different cultures, their interpretations of constellations and their stories about the stars. When storytime is over, you’ll find some fun STEM activities to extend the learning—as well as a great tutorial on how to do a cartwheel.

We are big fans of Sara Levine and her many science books, so I knew that we were in for a treat when I saw that she was one of the authors in the Storytelling Math series. In her book, The Animals Would Not Sleep!, it’s bedtime for Marco and his stuffed animals, but the animals will have none of it. When Marco tries to put them away, they fly, swim and slither right out of their bins. Marco tries sorting the animals in different ways, but nothing works and the animals start getting cranky. How can Marco make everyone happy and put an end to the mayhem? He thinks like a scientist to come up with a solution. This is another favorite that will stimulate plenty of discussion and help build problem-solving skills. It will also pave the way for some fun stuffed-animal play in your classroom!

Having a cloudy week and need a little bit of inspiration? Reach out to your library for any of these wonderful titles. They are guaranteed to enliven your learning and lift children and adults alike out of the February doldrums. Enjoy your winter reading adventures!

Storytelling Math was developed in collaboration with the math experts at the STEM education nonprofit, TERC, with support from the Heising-Simons Foundation.

Looking for a great resource for multicultural picture books? Check out Diverse Book Finder, the go-to resource for librarians, educators, parents and others interested in creating picture-book collections that reflect the diverse cultures and lifestyles of the children who read them.

Welcome Math Friends! 

As I write this blog post, the entire state of Illinois is under “shelter in place” orders to minimize the spread of Covid-19. Thank you to our state leaders for doing what is necessary to keep us safe. Thank you to everyone who is out there performing essential duties—from the healthcare workers on the front lines of the pandemic to the store clerks, restaurant employees and municipal workers who are keeping our stores stocked and our families fed and providing essential services in our communities. Thank you to the child care professionals who are caring for the children of these essential workers. Thank you all so very much for taking care of our families and our community!  

Now, take a deep breath and come join me over here in “Math Land.” In this time of uncertainty, let’s all step back, slow down and focus on building a strong foundation of math through hands-on learning.

With many children sheltering in place at home and fewer children attending our early childhood programs, this is an ideal time for deep learning. This is your chance to keep it simple—without the worksheets and the screens and the busy daily routines.

If you are a parent, I urge you to read this blog and then explore this website for a wealth of enriching early math activities. Then turn off the screens! Break out a deck of cards, a pair of dice, a board game or a puzzle. You can’t mess this up. Just relax and play with your child or children!

If you are an early childcare educator, take advantage of this rare opportunity to pause, relax and reboot. With many child care centers shut down, the world is beginning to recognize how valuable our work is—and how difficult and demanding it can be. Meanwhile, we have the gift of time to return to what we know works best—hands-on play—and to reimagine our math curriculum. Now is a great time to take a hike, clear your head and let your creative juices flow. 

After soothing your soul in the great outdoors, join us as we return to our early education roots. If we must shelter in place, we may as well head into the kitchen and whip up some comfort food while fostering the development of early math skills!

Cooking gives preschoolers a strong foundation in science, math, language, art and even reading. When we invite children to create in the kitchen, we provide learning opportunities in many academic subjects.  Think of your ingredients as subsets that will introduce opportunities for counting, adding, measuring, dividing and estimating. As children see how certain ingredients combine, react and change as they cook, they are learning basic chemistry. Baking also brings your children together at the table to share food, conversation, observations, ideas and camaraderie.

Before calling your preschoolers into your workspace, prep the area! Gather all of your ingredients and take care of the prep work that may be too difficult for the children in your care. For instance, you may need to chop or measure beforehand and then set those items out in the order that you will need them for the recipe.

When I have more ingredients than children (or more children than ingredients), I get creative. When I’m working with a younger group, I crack the eggs for the children and put them in the measuring cup. You may need to let each child add one egg or one child add three eggs, depending on how many cooks you have in the kitchen. Because you know that everyone needs a turn to do something!

Count the ingredients. Count the eggs. Count the number of stirs that each child gets. Meanwhile, expand the vocabulary of your young chefs! Ask the children to describe what they see, taste and feel. Talk about the colors and textures. Years ago, we had a visual learner who described pouring the dirt (brown sugar) on top of the snow (flour) and then stirring in the sunshine (eggs). For years, we asked the children to repeat that same story over and over to new children in the classroom. I have no idea how much joy that silly little narrative brought to our four-year-olds!

Waiting for muffins to bake can seem like an eternity when you are three. Don’t torture yourself or your students! Pick a recipe with minimal ingredients and shorter baking times. Instead of a 30-minute banana-bread recipe, make a smoothie, muffins or cookies. We use our baking time to take bathroom breaks, sweep the floor, wash the dishes, wash our hands and set the table so that we can feast on our masterpiece. If there’s still time left on the timer, then we wash our hands again! 

Remember to keep it light and keep it fun. Now that life is a bit slower, sit down and enjoy the conversations and the joy of being with your child or your young learners. You’ve got this, friends. While we wait out the coronavirus, breathe and bake and give thanks for the time and space to engage in these extended activities, feast on some comfort food and engage in some delicious early math learning!

Our spring dandelion days create hours and hours of exploration, inquisition and just plain observation!  There was plenty of math happening everywhere we turned.  One day we collected dandelions just to see how many we could collect.  The five year olds collected more than one hundred, while the two year olds were happy with six.  That is developmentally appropriate math right there!  When we find ourselves in these nature-based outdoor classrooms, the learning is always developmentally appropriate and always child centered.  It is the beauty of learning in a place that gives us everything we need. “When you look at a field of dandelions, you can either see a hundred weeds, or a hundred wishes.”
We had plenty of math vocabulary going as we searched for the longest and shortest dandelions.  We looked at the circumference of the flower, and made flower bracelets out of them.

We discussed the number of pedals.  We found the pattern of petals and I introduced them to the term “Fibonacci”, a number pattern that we often find in nature.  On this day, the flowers were too tall to spend much time on patterns.  We kept finding longer and longer stems, some with flowers, some with wispy white seed heads!  We discovered that we could divide the stems in half! Wait! We could even split them into four sections! Would it be possible to blow through a stem? Would it make a whistling sound? Would it taste bitter?  The investigation and process of discovery with dandelions was fast and furious, yet lasted for hours. This was math at their level, on their timetable.  Why would we rush this?I watched as some very young children could subitize better than their older friends.  Subitizing is the ability to “see” a small number of objects and know how many are there without counting.  When we roll a dice, we don’t need to count the pips, we know the number when we see it! Some children seem to grasp this concept with ease while others need to work with it a bit more.  We subitize a lot in our program, and being the math geek that I am, it just fascinates me to watch the difference in learning styles as this concept becomes effortless!

Giggles and screams of discovery were filling the hillside as our dandelion math morning took on a life of it’s own.  They began to classify, grouping according to length or size of the flower head.  I watched as a game developed of who could find the tallest one.  When you are yards away from your friend AND on a hill, it is hard to distinguish until you pick it and compare sizes! Then the realization comes that you need to pick at the very, very bottom of the stem!  This was a concept that was way beyond the comprehension of some of our younger friends, as hard as their peers tried to teach them.

Ah, the beauty of multi-age groups.  The beauty of allowing learning to enter as the brain and physical development allow.  The beauty of friendships and childhood on a sunny spring day, when all the stars align and the learning comes so naturally.

Fascinating!  We have always believed that human beings are hard-wired for language from birth and before.  Perhaps, we need to rethink our ideas about baby brains and math.