The activity I delivered broke down a 4/4 measure of music into a fraction pie. A whole pie can cover the measure, which would represent a whole note, two blue half pies each represent half notes, and red quarter pies represent quarter notes, etc. I geared the activity to grade 4 and 5, as this is when fractions in fourth are covered in the math curriculum. In the arts curriculum students are exploring rhythmic musical notation at the same time. This provides a great connecting tool between the two classes! This is also a great way to have students visually and physically represent equivalent fractions using their pie manipulatives.
I was very excited to teach the activity because as I played around with my fraction pies I was making new connections to mathematics myself! Equivalent notes is not an easy concept for students to grasp. We typically see this chart breakdown on music worksheets.
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| Tango Musicology. (2016, January 16). Notes and Rests: Their Duration [Online Image]. Retrieved from http://www.tangomusicology.com/wordpres/music-rudiments/notes-and-rests-their-duration/ |
Why not provide students with a hands on activity that is relating to their other coursework? This gives them another algorithm to use in their music classroom!
As I walked around the room I had a learning experiences of my own! I had not taken into account that this is old news for some of my peers and they haven't seen a bar of music since grade 9! I wish I would have taken some more time to go over clapping out the rhythms. We do learn from our own experiences, however, and now I realize I will need to get more feedback from my classes to make sure my problems have a wide base at the start!
I have included a brief excerpt from my favourite work by Maurice Ravel. This is an adaptation of his opera L'Enfant et les Sortileges. In this section of the work, the young boy is having a nightmare about his math homework. The large extending pointed finger is what got to me the most. It's so accusatory! I've included a little translation after the video.
A brief translation:
LITTLE OLD MAN
Water out of two pipes flows into a pool!
Two cabs leave the depot right at
Intervals of twenty minutes every hour,
Hour, hour, hour!
Once a country peasant,
Peasant, peasant, peasant,
Carried all his eggs to market!
Then an advertiser,
Iser, tiser, tiser,
Bought up sixty seconds airtime!
CHILD
freaking out
Oh, God! It’s arithmetic!
LITTLE OLD MAN
fascinated, repeating
fascinated, repeating
acquiescingly
Tickle, tickle, tickle!
(He dances around the Child in a more harassing way)
PUPPETS
rising up and shrieking
Tickle, tickle, tickle!
LITTLE OLD MAN
in falsetto
Eight and eight, twenty,
Twelve and six, thirteen,
Eight and eight, twenty,
Nine from three, sixteen.
CHILD
Nine from three, sixteen?
It's clear the boy doesn't understand a lot of his math problems as his
teacher in the dream is giving out the wrong answers! I think most of us
can relate to that overwhelming feeling of confusion in certain lessons
but thankfully math educators are making changes to ensure their
students don't get left behind.
My favourite fraction manipulative we used in class this week was the fraction clocks! When we had to add 3/4 and 1/3 the answer came to us so much faster than converting the fractions and then adding! I have always been a strong visual and kinesthetic learner and knowing this I will need to incorporate strategies in my classroom to make sure that the auditory learners are not excluded.
I am excited to see the next group of math activities in our class. I love seeing how my peers approach tasks so differently. There is so much to learn from the variation of strategies and delivery of each task.
My favourite fraction manipulative we used in class this week was the fraction clocks! When we had to add 3/4 and 1/3 the answer came to us so much faster than converting the fractions and then adding! I have always been a strong visual and kinesthetic learner and knowing this I will need to incorporate strategies in my classroom to make sure that the auditory learners are not excluded.
I am excited to see the next group of math activities in our class. I love seeing how my peers approach tasks so differently. There is so much to learn from the variation of strategies and delivery of each task.
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