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Monday, September 30, 2013

Music for Learning

Music is not only my favorite way to learn but my kiddos.  We sing EVERYTHING.  Even little made up songs, little jingles if you will. Keeping my 13 boys engaged while learning is a challenge this year.  Singing, however, keeps them actively moving and learning!!

Of course, I love Jack Hartmann and Shari Sloane's CD's and the kids love their catchy tunes.  I love using their CDs for math and science related topics.
 My favorite for literacy, however,  is Heidi Songs.  Why?  Because she provides DVDs that not only have the kids singing but dancing and learning.  After learning our letter/sounds and sight words, when I'm working with a small group I simply start humming the tune or doing the hand gestures and the kiddos go right into singing/spelling the learned sounds/sight words. 

Every time I introduce a new letter, we learn the corresponding sound and song!  Once we've all learned the song well, we tape ourselves (just a quick video on my iPhone).  A little incentive to keep them going.  We love to sing them in the hallway, too!  We get lots of compliments!  


This year I purchased Heidi's sight word videos and I am so glad that I did.  When we learn a new word, we learn the song.  They're all short and catchy so it makes it easy to sing the songs without the DVD as well.  I like to "test" my kids at the end of the week  to see who knows it by sight and who can spell the word.  I have been amazed at how well they all do!  

I highly recommend checking out her website and checking out some of her videos she has posted of her kids signing!  (I was not asked to make this post...these opinions are my own and were made from the excitement of watching my kiddos making such great academic progress). :)

How do you help your kids master letter recognition/sounds/sight words?  I would love to know.  More tricks of the trade are always helpful!!!

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