The summer holidays are over and school has started down here in Australia. It's important to get your class settled into a routine and following the class and school rules as quickly as possible. If you are in the northern hemisphere and you are half way through the school year now is a good time to re-enforce your classroom routines and expectations. 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 songs that can be used to help get your students into a routine and have everyone singing from the same classroom management song sheet all day 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.
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.
"Rocking Star" is another song that incorporates movement and music to help children get ready to learn.
Try these songs to assist with your classroom routines and to help get your children in the right frame of mind to learn. For more educational tunes visit my YouTube channel and don't forget to subscribe!
I had a fantastic time singing along with and reading to Cindy Price's (Mrs Price's Kingergators Blog) wonderful 1st grade class in Delaware, USA via Skype from Sydney, Australia on Friday afternoon (Saturday morning for me). The distance from Sydney to Delaware is 9854 Miles or 15858 km so the music had to travel a long way!
The kids were great. I loved their singing, actions and all round enthusiasm for music and learning. They had so many interesting and thoughtful questions for me about Australia and I learnt a lot about Delaware and the USA from them as well. I even got to give out some Class Dojo points from halfway around the world! It was an amazing experience.
The Songs we sung were "What makes a good friend?", "The friends of 10", and "Let's make a pizza".
"What makes a good friend?"
"The friends of 10"
Thanks for having me in your class Cindy, your kids totally rock! I had such a fun time!
If any other teachers in the USA or any other part of the world wants me to Skype with their class for a sing along then send me a message on Facebook Rocking Dan Teaching Man Facebook or Twitter Rocking Dan Teaching Man Twitter and I am sure we could work out a time!
Here is a link to Cindy's blog http://mrspriceskindergators.blogspot.com She is a wonderful teacher and her blog has so many fantastic ideas about teaching and learning.
It was a wonderful experience leading the #TeacherFriends twitter chat on Tuesday the 12th of January. I had an amazing time connecting with so many great educators from the USA and around the world. The topic for the chat was music and movement in the classroom. This is a topic which I have a great interest in and I was able to share some of my knowledge about the benefits of using music and movement in the classroom. I also shared some of my resources and learnt from other fantastic teachers.
Click on the link below to read full chat on Storify. Thanks to Maggie from Maggies Kinder Corner https://twitter.com/maggieskinder for putting it together.
Thank you to award winning children's author and musician Debbie Clement https://twitter.com/KweezleQueen for arranging to have me on the #TeacherFriends twitter chat. I had a fantastic time and I am very grateful for the opportunity. It one of the highlights of my teaching career.
Music and movement plays an important role in the development of children. They are wonderful tools to help kids with their learning. Teachers can use music and movement to help teach curriculum content, social skills, rules and routines, gross motor skills and to help children get ready to learn. And of course singing, dancing and playing music is also lots of fun! Check out my YouTube channel for some great educational music for the primary classroom Rocking Dan Teaching Man's YouTube channel
It's that time of the year again! Run, Run as fast as you can! The Gingerbread Man is back! I have updated the video for The Gingerbread Man Description song! The song is a great stimulus for descriptive writing about that funny and delicious fairy tale character The Gingerbread Man! It's also a very catchy tune!
Here is a new video of The Gingerbread Man Description song! Enjoy!
It was a great thrill to have Palma from KFundamentals share the original version of The Gingerbread Man Description song at her Kindergarten writing presentations in Minnesota and New Hampshire this week. Thank you Palma, I am very humbled! Go and check out the KFundamentals blog it's full of amazing teaching and learning ideas!
~
If you would like to buy a copy of the song/video click on the link and go to my TPT store.
Today my YouTube Channel Rocking Dan Teaching Man reached an amazing milestone, 1 Million YouTube views! A big thank you to everyone who has helped me on my YouTube journey! Thanks to all the amazing children, teachers, parents, subscribers, friends, bloggers and educational presenters who have watched and shared my animated songs. Check out my Thank you song below.
The Rocking Dan Teaching Man YouTube Channel integrates music and movement with the primary Curriculum. Music and movement is a great way to help children with their learning.
It's such great news, I feel like dancing like a scarecrow!
My interest in integrating music with the primary curriculum was sparked when I was completing a post graduate certificate in Education (Early Childhood) in 2008/2009. I wanted to see if I could engage the children in my Year 1 class with their writing through music, movement and song. I was keen to see if the use of music would have a positive impact on their learning. During the two years of the course I collaborated and record a number songs with the children in my class. We composed description songs about book characters and procedural (how to) songs and recorded them. Collaborating with the children in the writing and recording of the songs was really important as it gave them a sense of ownership of the music and really engaged them. I burnt all the songs onto CDs for the children. I found the children loved creating and recording songs and it had an amazingly positive impact on their writing.
Here is a picture from the Rocking Dan Teaching Man archive (2008) Playing "We're going to make a snowflake!") With the Year 1 children.
My favourite quote from the research I did into music and education at the time was:
"If
readin’,
writin’,
and rithmetic
are the heart of education, the arts and music are the soul.”(2010)
Hansen, M, Harrison (N.Y.) Association of Teachers. American Teacher Feb 2010
In 2012 I changed grades and became a Kindergarten teacher. I decided I wanted to add a visual element to the music. I was lucky enough to find a user friendly animation program called Flip Boom All Stars by Toon Boom and so I started to add animations to the songs.
On October 28th 2012 I uploaded my first animated educational song to YouTube "The Friends of 10". I came up with the song to help my Kindergarten class with their number fluency for the addition combinations of 10. And that was the beginning of the Rocking Dan Teaching Man YouTube channel. I have since remade and recorded the song. Here is the updated version below.
By the end of the year "The Friends of 10" had 886 hits, which I thought was amazing! Not long after the song was publish on YouTube the wonderfully talented children's musician, author and educational blogger Debbie Clement shared it on her Google + site and over night the song started to get a lot of plays. (Thanks Debbie!) Rainbows within reach Debbie Clement Something about the song captured the imagination of teachers and children. It certainly has helped children learn their addition facts of 10! Something that I made to help my own class has help many children from all over the world. So that is great!
I then added "The Polar Bear Length song" which was based on a child's question from my class "How tall is a polar bear? " I put the question on our wonder wall and I found out that a adult male polar bear can be as tall as 3 metres. So I created a polar bear in the classroom that was made out of paper and cardboard. The children measured him with informal measurement objects. I took all the information that the children had found out about the polar bear and created a song and animation about it. When the song was finished and I showed the children they had the biggest smiles on their faces. It was such an engaging learning experience and the students were so proud of all the things they had discovered about the length of a polar bear.
After a while those two songs started to get a few views and "The Polar Bear Length Song"proved to be popular with older grades as well. I was really surprised by the response but it was great to see that my music had gone beyond my classroom and was helping to engage other children with their learning. So I started to write and record more songs for my class and shared them on YouTube. Song such as "Stack Slide or Roll", "The Dinosaur Number Conservation Song", "Come on and Meet the 2D Shapes", "Rocking Our Way to 100", "The Elephant Mass Song" and "What's Heavier Than a Lunch Box?"
"What's Heavier Than a Lunch Box?" (A song from a child's question.)
Then in late December I had the privilege of meeting educational musical super star Heidi Butkus from Heidi Songs on Linkedin, She told me she had seen "The Elephant Mass Song"on YouTube and really liked it.
Heidi then offered me the chance to co write a song with her for then upcoming album "Musical Math 2". "What is place value?" It was fantastic making demos and sending different version of the song back and forth with Heidi over the internet 12065km away! Heidi has been an amazing friend and mentor and she has shared so many of my YouTube songs via her Facebook page Heidi Songs Facebook page
including "The Friends of 10" and "What makes a good Friend". It was a real thrill to meet Heidi in person at the I teach K conference in Las Vegas in 2014. Her support certainly helped to expose my music to a wider audience. (Thanks Heidi!)
Shortly after that I was contacted by Carolyn Kisloski a wonderful teacher, blogger and educational author. She told me she had shared "Rocking Our Way to 100"on her blog Kindergarten Holding Hands and Sticking Together. Carolyn regularly shares my songs and animations on her blog which is great and I am so grateful for all her support and feedback. She also gave me the idea for the song Secret Agent Number Bond. (Thanks Carolyn!)
It was really great that other Teacher/ bloggers had started to share my music on their blogs and other social media. I was overwhelmed when the very talented and world famous Kindergarten blogger Greg Smedley-Warren from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard shared Come on and Meet the Shapes on his Facebook page! He also invited lots of his followers to like my page. I had an immediate influx of people checking out my YouTube channel because of that! Greg also included me in one of his blog post about male Kindergarten teachers which was great. (Thanks Greg!).
Here is an updated version of the song with Vertices! It Rocks!
In 2013 I was very fortunate to receive The Frater Travel Scholarship from The Australian Catholic University. I was given the award for my work with music, movement and the primary curriculum.
(With Bob and Margaret Frater and Professor Anne Cummins)
The scholarship allowed me the opportunity to travel to The I Teach K conference in Las Vegas. This gave me the opportunity to meet some fantastic teachers and take part in some incredible professional development. The session I was looking forward to the most was Pete Harry's Harry Kindergarten Music YouTube channel Teaching with YouTube. The session was fantastic, it really helped me explore some new ideas about using YouTube. Pete's YouTube channel is a fantastic teaching and learning resource for K-2 learners and is also extremely popular with teachers and children. Pete surprised me by putting a image of me up on the screen during his presentation! It was a great boast to my YouTube channel. ( Thanks Pete!)
It was wonderful experience to be in the audience at Deanna Jump's Mrs Jump's Class blog workshop on writing when she showed a clip of my song "The Big Bad wolf description song" and said it was a great stimulus for writing.
It was tremendous to see a song of mine being used at a national conference in the USA. Wow! Thanks Deanna, that was a big thrill for me and a huge boast to my YouTube Channel.
In Las Vegas also had the pleasure of meeting Palma Lindsay from kfundamentals. She really liked my music and has since shared some of my songs such as "The Friends of 10", "The Gingerbread Man Description Song" and "Secret Agent Number Bond"at some of her Kindergarten professional development workshops. (Thanks Palma!)
Thanks for sharing Palma!
Thanks to Susanna from whimsy workshop teaching for giving me the fantastic clipart used in the video of "Secret Agent Number Bond song." I have also used her clipart in "Good Morning Sit on the Floor Quietly" Susanna very generously shared this song on social media. Thanks Susanna!
Terri from Kinder Kapers has been a wonderful supporter of mine as well. She has included my music in some of her blog posts. Terri is a really warm, friendly and helpful person as well as a fine educator and now mentor to other teachers. Thanks Terri for your promotion of my YouTube channel.
Fellow Australian Kim from Music Teacher Resources has also been a great promoter of my music too. I got a big surge in view on "Where am I now? the position song" when she shared it on Pinterest. (Thanks Kim!)
Bev Dunbar maths matters resources has been a fantastic help as well. She has helped me out with the language of maths for some of my songs and has given me lots of constructive feedback as well as sharing my songs on her website.(Thanks Bev.)
Kindergarten blogger Cindy Price Mrs Prices' Kindergators blog has also been a wonderful supporter of mine. Thanks for the many shares and retweets on twitter and Facebook Cindy!
As my YouTube channel started to grow I was getting some interest from the media. My story featured in About Catholic Schools Magazine, ACU Inisight Magazine, Australian Teacher Magazine, a few local papers and then in The Sydney Morning Herald!
I was also interviewed on Sydney Radio ABC 702! It was fantastic to be able to get the message of the importance of music and movement in primary curriculum to a wider audience and to talk about how my YouTube channel can help with this!
In mid 2014 I had the chance to work with some expert sensory teachers. They gave me some great ideas about how to incorporate movement, music, and visuals into the classroom to help children self regulate and get them ready to learn. From these meetings I came up with the songs "Do the bear walk", "Good morning sit on the floor quietly", "Rocking Star" and "Get ready for the silent bean bag game" As well as some brain break songs like "Dance like a scarecrow" and "Get up and dance to The Alphabet". These movement songs have been a great addition to my YouTube channel and are so much fun!
In April this year I was able to present at the GAFE summit in Sydney. My presentation "YouTube in the classroom and beyond" showcased the way I use YouTube as a teaching and learning tool to help children with their academic, social, emotional and physical development.
It has been a great experience moving onto an older grade this year and seeing how the kids still respond to music and movement. My class got a fantastic thrill after we collaborated on a procedure song about making paper frogs. My class were so happy when we started to receive emails from children in other countries sharing images of paper frogs they had made following our song! Powerful learning indeed!
Just three weeks ago I received another award, this time from the ACU Alumni association. The Highly Commended Community engagement award. That was such a great thrill and honour. I am so humbled to have received this great recognition.
It was wonderful to receive a letter of support and congratulations from my Regional Director!
I am very thankful to everyone who has listen to my music, shared it and danced to it. It is so wonderful that I am helping children around the world with their learning.
Some interesting facts about the Rocking Dan Teaching Man YouTube Channel:
The top five countries by percentage of number of views:
USA 49%, Australia 15%, U.K. 14%, Canada 4.4%, Singapore 1.5%
The most number of views on one day was 3747 on April 27th 2015
The top ten songs by number of views: The Friends of 10, Stack Slide or Roll, The Polar Bear Length song, The Elephant Mass Song, Come on and Meet the Shapes, Where am I Now? The position song, What makes a good friend?, What's Heavier Than a Lunchbox, Secret Agent Number Bond, The Dinosaur Number Conservation Song.
My YouTube Channel recently reached another milestone, 1000 subscribers. Thanks to everyone who has subscribed to my channel!
So that's the Rocking Dan Teaching Man Journey to 1 million YouTube views story!
Music and movement is a great way to help support children's learning and develop their social skills! No matter what age you are sometimes you just need To Get up and dance to the Alphabet!
Zed version Australia
Zee Version USA
Until next time Rock on and Subscribe to my YouTube channel!
Rocking Dan Teaching Man.
. There are some great educational song on the channel including songs about Maths, Literacy, Social Skills, Brain breaks, Co ordination and motor skills!
“It
is clear that music is good for Children’s cognitive development and should be apart of the preschool and primary school curriculum.”Dr
Takako Fujioka,
It was really wonderful to be interviewed by About Catholic Schools Magazine this week about the way I integrate music and movement with the primary curriculum. You can subscribe to my Educational YouTube channel by clicking on the link here: Rocking Dan Teaching Man YouTube Channel
I was also able to discuss what a great privilege and honour it was to awarded The Highly Commended Community Engagement award from ACU Alumni a couple of weeks ago. A big thank you to ACU for the award and About Catholic Schools magazine for sharing my teaching story.
A big thank you to The Australian Catholic University (ACU) and ACU Alumni for the huge honour of being awarded The Highly Commended Community engagement award for my work integrating music and movement with the primary curriculum as Rocking Dan Teaching Man. I am really grateful to receive this amazing award. I'd also like to thank the university's Education department for nominating me for the award.
It was a wonderful night and I was totally inspired hearing the stories of the magnificent work being down by the major award winners. Click on the link below to read all it.
ACU has given me many fantastic opportunities both as an undergraduate and post graduate student to further develop as an educator. It was during my post graduate studies that I was able to investigate and implement action research on the impact of music and movement on students' academic achievement in the primary classroom. Now through the medium of YouTube I am able to share music and animations with teachers, parents and children all over the world. My YouTube channel now has over 900 000 views.
ACU also gave me chance to travel to The United States to attend the I Teach K conference in 2014 when I was awarded Frater International travel scholarship. ACU is a wonderful institution that has a goal to produce graduates who serve others.
The Catholic Education Office Sydney has also given me many opportunities to improve as a teacher through a wide range of inservices and professional development over the years. I am most grateful to them for subsidizing my Post Graduate study at ACU. It is a really wonderful and unique school system that I work in.
I am also thankful to the staff of About Catholic Schools magazine for the feature story they wrote about me last year. It was great to be able to share my teaching story with a wider audience and led to other stories being written about my teaching and YouTube channel including in The Sydney Morning Hearld, ACU insight magazine, Australian Teacher Magazine and a radio interview on ABC 702.
