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!

Our favorite rhythmic book, when the boys were little, was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  I read that book so many times that I know every word by heart.  We purchased several copies over those early years, since they did get a little worn out from overuse.  We had the large version, the hardback version, the small board book version, the paperback version, and we even had a copy of Bill Cosby reading it on cassette tape (remember cassette tapes?).

Predictability and sequencing are early math skills.  As children begin to familiarize themselves with a book, they begin to expect the sequence of words in a set order.  This is one important reason that we should never skip pages, as they will be let down that the book does not follow the pattern that they have come to expect.

In Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, there are several sets of predictable events.  The first is that the letters appear in alphabetical order.  Many young children are beginning to learn their ABCs in the order of the alphabet.  This is a much more specific skill than learning the ABC song.  (Knowing this song is often confused as knowing the alphabet).  Therefore, the fact that “A told B and B told C” makes logical sense to children.  This relationship of the letters to one another is fundamentally mathematical.

Next, there is a logical rhyming sequence to the words.  The rhymes are sing-song and make sense when read aloud.  In addition, completing the rhymes with a repetitive sentence, reinforces the predictability, the rhyming pattern and the sense of story.  “I’ll meet you at the top of the coconut tree” repeats throughout the book so that children come to expect it.  What can I say.  The whole thing works.

This crossover between literacy and math is central to the idea of an integrated curriculum.  Yes, reading books is a language-based activity focused on language learning, reading and writing. But recognizing that books can support other cognitive areas of development makes reading them a whole lot more interesting.

In children’s music, you can hear the regular beats of the rhythm.  Take the Barney Song (I Love You).  If you sing this song to yourself, and clap along with the beat you will see that it is a regular, even beat through the first part and then it quickens near the middle and then regulates at the end.

I love you.  (3 beats)

You love me. (3 beats)

We’re a happy family. (7 beats)

With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you. (3 beats quick, 3 beats slow, 6 beats quick)

Won’t you say you love me too? (7 beats)

Next time you sing this with the kids, have them clap on the beat and see if they hear the rhythm.  If you have rhythm sticks, they can also clap their sticks together to the beat of the music.  Try this with several songs and see which ones have clear and steady beats.

Often, the rhythm of the beat occurs as a pattern.  Clapping to the beat will encourage the children to explore the pattern of music to see that the rhythm repeats (pattern)

Music is both a social and cultural construct and a mighty powerful force in human lives.  Since the beginning of recorded history, there is evidence of music in the everyday lives of people.  Imagine the world before IPods, CD’s, record players, and radios, before recorded music and electricity.  Music existed inside homes and communities where it was experienced “live” everyday as people sang as they worked, beat tribal drums as a means of communication and hushed babies to sleep with the soft lilting tunes of lullabies.

During March we are going to explore the elements of music (rhythm, tone, and form) as well as the process of making music (the acquisition of musical skills and dispositions) as they relate to mathematical concepts and opportunities.

Consider the ways in which you use music in your program.  Do you sing songs to indicate a time of the day (to transition children from one activity to another), or do you sing songs that support language development (“Days of the Week”) during circle time?  How frequently do you have music playing in the background during free choice time?  What kinds of music do you expose the children to?  Are you introducing various genres of music (jazz, classical, pop, blues) or do you stick to traditional children’s music?  How frequently do you have musical instruments out and available for children to explore on their own?

As you ponder these questions, consider ways that you can expand musical opportunities in your program.  Can you invest in some world music CDs, or small African drums?  What will these additions add to your program?