Learning the addition facts to 10 is one of the most important early numeracy concepts for children to master. One of the most effective ways to help children learn is through movement and music.
Here are 3 songs from Rocking Dan Teaching Man to help children with their fluency of the 10 facts.
The Friends of 10
Yes 10 is having a party and inviting all his friends! Your class will have a fun time at 10's party as all his friends arrive for a good time. 5 and 5 dance the jive, 2 and 8 bring the cake and 9 and 1 have lots of fun. La la la la la the friends of 10. This song gets stuck in your head! I know a number his name is 10 he had a party invited all his friends.
Here is some great feedback I got about The Friends of 10 from some Kindergarten children in Victoria, Australia.
Let's all do the 10 dance
Come on everybody let's all do the 10 dance! Here's a 10 facts song you can get up and dance to! No party is complete without some moving and dancing. Your class will love dancing to the beat and learning the 10 facts. You'll probably get up and dance too! It's a fun dance tune so come on everybody grab your 10 partner and do the 10 dance!
Rainbow facts to 10
Rainbow facts to 10, I know the rainbow facts to 10! Another song that incorporates movement to help children learn and remember the addition facts to 10!
There you have it 3 catchy Rocking Dan Teaching Man tunes to help children learn and master the addition facts to 10!
I have had a number of requests for the guitar chords of The Friends of 10. So I have made a how to video. I hope you enjoy playing and singing The Friend of 10 with your class!
How to play The Friends of 10
There has also been some interest in how I write, record and animate my songs. Here is a behind the scenes look at the making of The rainbow facts to 10 song!
It is also important that children are able to achieve fluency and mastery of other addition combinations. So here are 3 more tunes you can you with your class to help them with their addition combinations.
Hey 20 you've got a lot for friend (The Friends of 20)
Give me 5 let's make 5
Secret Agent Number Bond
Enjoy using these mathematical tunes with your class or children at home. Until next time Rock on and don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel Rocking Dan Teaching Man.
Let me know if you have any great ideas about how to teach 10 facts fluency.
It's back to school for teachers in the northern hemisphere and the start of the schooling journey for the youngest students in the school. There are so many new things to learn for kindergarten children at school. Children learn through multi sensory experiences. Music and movement are a fantastic way to teach young children different academic and social concepts as well as classroom rules and routines. My YouTube channel Rocking Dan Teaching Man has lots of fantastic catchy songs for the kindergarten classroom!
Here are some classroom management songs that help teach children your expectations about how to come into the classroom, line up, tidy up and transition from lesson to lesson.
Good morning sit on the floor quietly
The Line up Song
Tidy up the classroom
Transition Time
Here are some Mathematical songs to help your kinders with their early number work.
The ballad of the numbers 1 to 10 is a fun song about counting to 10.
Bop bop and count to 20 is a lively tune about counting to 20.
The Dinosaur number conservation song is a fun catchy tune for children about number conservation starring a group of dinosaurs. Number conservation is the ability to understand that the number of objects in a group stays the same no matter how they are rearranged. It is important that children are secure with number conservation before they begin trying to add numbers together.
The Counting backwards from 30 song is great way to help children learn to count backwards.
Why count to 100 when you can rock to 100! Your class will love rocking out as they learn to count to 100!
Here are some tunes to help your kinders learn their 2D shapes.
Come on and meet the shapes
Getting in shape with the 2D shapes will get your kids up and moving as well as learning about shapes.
Letter recognition is so important to the early learner. Your kids will enjoy getting up and dancing to The Alphabet.
Get up and dance to The Alphabet (USA Zee Z version) For all my American Friends!
Get up and dance to The Alphabet (UK Zed Z version) For all my Canadian and UK Friends!
Learning social skills such as how to be a good friend and how to treat others are important in the first few weeks at school. Here are some songs that can help your kinders learn these concepts.
What makes a good friend is a fantastic song about developing friendship skills at school.
Hands off Feet off is a catchy tune that teaches children the concept of not hitting or kicking others. To be assertive but not aggressive when dealing with problems.
I hope these fun rocking catchy tunes can help you in the first few weeks and through out the school year.
The summer break is coming to an end and the school year is about to start in the northern hemisphere. It's important to get your class settled into a routine and following the class and school rules as quickly as possible. Music is a great way to help children learn concepts and can be used as an effective classroom management tool. Here are some Rocking Dan Teaching Man YouTube songs and animations that can be used to help get your students into a routine and have everyone singing from the same classroom management song sheet all year long!
Start the school day off with music first thing in the morning. As your children come into class play the song "Good morning sit on the floor quietly." It gives the children clear directions and expectations about how to enter the classroom. The song reminds the children about the things the teacher is looking for when they come into class. It's a fun catchy song. Challenge your students to see if everyone can be sitting on the floor quietly ready to learn before the end of the tune.
Getting a nice straight quiet class line can be a challenge at times. "The line up song" teaches the children in a fun melodic way the things you are looking for when they line up. It gives clear expectations about how the class line should look and what the children need to be doing in order to be ready to move around the school.
A great session of learning can lead to an untidy classroom. The children may have been using glitter, recycled materials, boxes, paper, markers, pencils, scissors, electronic devices, books and cardboard during the lesson. Everyone needs to be responsible for taking care of the classroom when it's time to pack up. Sometimes it can be a challenge to get the children motivated to clean up. "Tidy up the classroom" is a fun song that encourages the children to clean up quickly, safely and respectfully. Challenge your students to see if they can tidy up the classroom before the end of the song. You can play it a couple times if it's a big clean up job. Your kids will be happily singing as they tidy and before you and they even know it the classroom will be cleaned up and looking great!
Through out the school day you are going to need the children to move from one lesson to another. "Transition time" is a fun song that encourages the children to move quickly and sensibly to their next activity. The song gives the children 1 minute to do everything they need to do to get ready for the next lesson. It's a great way to get the kids focused on what they should be doing so no time is wasted between learning sessions.
Are you introducing Flexible Seating to your students this year? Choice, ownership, collaboration, student voice there are so many reasons to take flexible seating on board in your classroom. Check out "The Flexible Seating song". It introduces the concept of flexible seating to your students in a fun way. The song could also be used to show parents the benefits of flexible seating in the classroom. You could use it at your back to school information night.
For more information check out my Flexible Seating blog post
Music and movement can also have a positive impact on your students' brain function. Music and movement can help to create the right balance in the mind to allow the children to attain an optimal level of alertness and calmness so that they are ready to learn. Here are some songs that can help the children in your class find their optimal level of mental alertness.
"Do the Bear Walk" is a fun and energetic song that incorporates gross motor and heavy load resistance movement exercises with balance and coordination movements. It's a great way to help improve your students brain function and gets them in a good frame of mind to be ready to learn.
"The silent bean bag game" song helps children with their throwing and catch skills as well as giving them a chance to settled into the school day and self regulate. It is also a lot of fun.
"Rocking Star" is another song that incorporates movement and music to help children get ready to learn.
The days are getting colder and the leaves are falling from the trees as we move into October and a new season. Here is a fun movement brain break that your kids will love and will help them renew and refocus their energy to get back into their work. Dance like a scarecrow!
Hey who doesn't want to dance like a scarecrow!
It's also really important that your class gets along with and respects each other in order to create a positive learning environment. "What makes a good friend" and "Hands off Feet off" are a couple of tunes that help to teach and re-enforce the concepts of respect, self control and friendship.
Try these songs to assist with your classroom routines and to help get your children in the right frame of mind to learn. Look out for my next blog post with will be full of Rocking Dan Teaching Man educational learning songs about beginning school.
For more educational tunes visit my YouTube channel and don't forget to subscribe!
Last week the pirates "found" the treasure and were chased by monsters to the edge of The Chasm of Despair! Our STEM challenge was to design and build a bridge that would support the weight of 3 pirates and their treasure so that they could cross the chasm safely and get back to their ship before the chasing monsters got them! The children designed and made some fantastic bridges and helped the pirates get away.
But after the STEM challenge some of the children questioned the ethics of their decision to help the pirates. If you put yourself in the shoes of the monsters and saw things from their perspective then you see the situation in a different light! It was the monsters' treasure! The pirates came along and just took it! Just because you have a map that shows you where the treasure is doesn't give you the right to take it for yourself. We had a great discussion about it!
So it was decided that we had better right the wrong of helping the pirates by building them a bridge to get away. However building another bridge for the monsters to cross would be too time consuming. By the time it was constructed the pirates would have gotten away. We needed something that would propel the monsters over The Chasm of Despair quickly! The class brainstormed some ideas and it was decided that a catapult would be the best thing for the job!
The children then started to research catapult designs. Of course there was a musical visual stimulus to help motivate and inspire the children before they started their task!
The monster catapult song
The children did a wonderful job researching and designing their catapults using the Google draw app.
They chose the materials they wanted to use and built their catapults. Everyone had a fun time watching the monsters get launched across The Chasm of Despair. Before the challenge the children estimated how far they thought the monsters would travel through the air. After the challenge they measured the distance the monsters flew. It was great fun!
Well that was the end of part 2! Was it right to help the monsters get across The Chasm of Despair? The debate is still going on. What will happen now the monsters are over the chasm? You'll have to wait till part 3!
The Pirate clip art I used in the song video is by Hidesy's HIDESY'S CLIPART TPT store.
The pirate have found the treasure...but look out! monsters are chasing them! The only way to safety is to cross the chasm of despair! The chasm of despair is a dark dangerous place and if you fall in it spells certain doom!
Can you help the pirates get away from the monsters and get across the chasm of despair?
We had a really fun time this week with our Pirate Bridge Building STEM challenge. The task started off with a musical animation stimulus. The Pirate Bridge Building STEM song gave the children all the background information they needed to complete the challenge and it was a jolly good sing a along too!
There's nothing like a sing a long and a dance to get the brain stimulated to be creative and solve problems!
The pirates followed the treasure map and found the treasure but monsters chased them to the edge of the chasm of despair!
The only way across the chasm of despair is to build a bridge and cross it!
The children researched different types of bridges and designed a bridge that they thought would be appropriate to carry and support the weight of the pirates and their treasure across the chasm.
The children used the Google draw app to design their bridges.
Then they choose the materials they wanted to use to build their bridges.
We had a variety of designs such as suspension bridges, arch bridges, draw bridges (so they could be pulled up and the monsters not follow the pirates across) rope bridges and beam bridges.
They children then choose the materials they wanted to use to build their bridges and began construction.
Here is the chasm of despair if you fall in it's certain doom!
The children constructed some wonderful bridges. It was great to see and hear them collaborate so well and solve a variety of problems through trial and error. It was wonderful hands on multi sensory learning incorporating technology, music, movement, collaboration, problem solving and construction. Yes, the pirates got across the chasm of despair but the monsters are not happy! Look out for part 2! The monster are not going to give up that easily!
So are you ready and willing to take the Pirate Bridge Building STEM Challenge? If so then let me know I would love to see what your class comes up with.
I had a great time at Google's Australian Head office at the YouTube creators meeting in Sydney on Friday night. It was a wonderful experience to see Google's Sydney office and network with other YouTube creators. I got to meet so many different people with diverse YouTube channels and hear their stories. I had the opportunity to meet some other YouTube musicians and educators too which was excellent. I picked up some good tips about how to make my channel better and connect with more people. A big thank you to Google for putting on a fantastic fun and informative event.
It is a great thrill to have reached so many teachers and children from around the world through YouTube. My channel has had over 1.3 million views and currently has 1441 subscribers. It's always great to hear from teachers and parents about the positive impact my music is having on their classrooms and children's learning.
My YouTube Channel Rocking Dan Teaching Man has given me many opportunities like winning The Frater Travel Scholarship from ACU in 2013 which allowed me to travel to Las Vegas and attended an international educational conference. Whilst in the United States I was able to meet legendary teacher and YouTube musician Pete Harry and see him present his educational session Teaching with YouTube. Pete's wonderful educational music channel has over 100 million views and has over 100 000 subscribers. Harry Kindergarten Music.
YouTube has been a fantastic vehicle for allowing me to share my educational music and animations with a large audience and I am grateful to Google for that. It's led to me being interviewed by a few different magazines, newspapers and radio stations which has been great as I have been able to reach more teachers and as a result I have been able to help more children with their learning through music, movement and animation.
My YouTube channel gave me the opportunity to share my knowledge and understanding about how children learn as a presenter at an EDTech Summit in Sydney last year. I was able to share how I use music, visuals and movement to help children's learning through the use of technology and YouTube. It's really great to be able to help other teachers with their professional development.
As my YouTube channel has grown I've been contacted by other teachers which has led to more fantastic opportunities to share my teaching knowledge. In January I was lucky enough to lead an international twitter chat #teacherfriends on the importance of music and movement in the primary classroom. It was a great experience and I really enjoyed interacting and sharing ideas with other teachers.
It has also been fantastic to hear stories about how educational presenters have used my YouTube songs and videos in their presentations and expressed their opinions about how they are great engaging teaching and learning tools for the classroom.
I've also been amazed by teachers sending me photos of their students learning or completing a lesson based on one of my YouTube songs.
My YouTube channel has also given me the chance to meet many wonderful teachers and play live music for their classes through video chat calls. It's really wonderful to interact with children by playing live music and singing a long with them in order to help them learn in a fun and engaging way.
Last year I received some fantastic recognition from the Australian Catholic University when I was awarded a highly commended community engagement award for integrating the primary curriculum with music, movement and technology through my YouTube channel. It was such a great thrill!
I am really grateful to Google and YouTube for allowing me to reach so many teachers and help so many children with their learning through a multi sensory approach by using Music, Movement and Visuals. It's truly wonderful to get feedback from parents and teachers who have contacted me to tell me that my songs and videos have helped their children with their writing, number skills, self regulation, routines and social skills.Without YouTube this would not be possible. Thank you Google! Now is a great time to visit my channel, subscribe to it and share it with your friends.Rocking Dan Teaching Man's YouTube channel
A few weeks ago I received a very nice message on my YouTube channel from a wonderful teacher named Gillian Keir. Gillian teaches a special group of ten children from The Glenleighden School, in Brisbane, Australia called "The Galaxies". In her message she mentioned that "The Galaxies" really enjoyed singing along to my song The Friends of 10. Click on the link to go to Rocking Dan Teaching Man's YouTube channel.
The children enjoyed learning their addition facts of 10 with The Friends of 10 so much that they decided to write a song to help them learn their addition partners of 20. With the help of their teachers Gillian Keir and Belinda James the children wrote a song called The Friends of 20. When they had completed the song the school's very talented Music Therapist, Vanessa Jouet recorded it and emailed it to me. Wow, it was amazing to hear The Friends of 20 for the first time! The music and lyrics are based on my song The Friends of 10 and it sounds great!
Gillian asked me if I could animate The Friends of 20 and post it on my YouTube channel. I was more than happy to do this. The amazingly talented teacher and artist Susanna from Whimsy Workshop Teaching very generously gave me some of her number clip art to use for the video. Thanks so much Susanna! Click on the link to go to Whimsy Workshop Teaching's TPT store.
Here it is! The video for The Friends of 20 Written by the children of "The Galaxies" class and performed by Vanessa Jouet. Enjoy!
Gillian let me know that the children are very excited about performing the song at an upcoming school assembly. They are also writing more songs to help them with their learning! Great job Galaxies. Vanessa is also starting to write some educational songs too! I look forward to hearing them all.
Here are two of "The Galaxies" showing everyone The Friends of 20.
I've also got a new song about the addition partners of 10 called Do the 10 dance. It's a super fun groovy tune to get the children up and dancing while they are learning their addition facts of 10. Check it out.
