Division in Music

The second activity in the division lesson is to learn how it applies to music. After playing "Old Joe Clark" to remember the song and game, the kids joined me at the whiteboard.


By listening, they discovered that the song "Old Joe Clark" has 3 big sections. I drew 3 large arcs on the board, and we labeled them ABA by listening to see if the sections were the same or different. "This song is in ABA form," I told them. "We just divided the song into 3 parts!" I divided the students into 3 groups and had each group sing a different section.





Next, the students listened for even smaller sections in the music. With this part of the lesson, the kids can hear it in two measure sections or one measure sections. This class heard it in one measure sections. Underneath the large arcs, I drew smaller arcs for the smaller sections. "We just divided the song into 12 parts," I said. But instead of splitting the class into 12 groups, we did 4 groups and I pointed to each group when it was their turn to sing a small section.

Lastly, I showed the students how some songs have a strong/weak beat (2), strong/weak/weak beat (3), and a strong/weak/weak/weak beat (4). The students and I used our bodies to tap the beat of the song to find out if it was in 2, 3, or 4. Then we sang the entire song while tapping the strong and weak beats on our bodies.

With some extra time, we reviewed "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and applied the same process to this song. We divided it into 2 sections, with 7 smaller sections, and found out that the beat was in 3. We also took the song "Witch's Brew" and did the same process with that song! It was also in ABA form (the kids liked that connection to "Old Joe Clark"), had 12 smaller sections, and they decided it was had 4 beats in a measure. Technically, "Witch's Brew" is in 2, but the eighth notes are so slow that it feels like 4.

It was super fun, the students understood the idea of form, and we used division in music :)

Division and Halloween

Using a lesson plan created by my mentor Emily Soderborg, the kids at Rocky Mountain Elementary and I learned a LOT about division and we had tons of fun doing it. I haven't done math for about 4 years, so I had to look up some of the division lingo to make sure I was doing it right. I'll be honest, I even messed up a simple division problem, but the kids helped me fix it so I know they get it :)

We learned a new song today called "Old Joe Clark." To get the melody in their heads, we added some movements; walking around in a circle with linked arms (the kids didn't want to hold hands...), and walking to the center and back during the chorus. It was a challenge for them since they were in a bit of an oval shape and some of the boys didn't understand the concept of round circles. Then, we changed the chorus to "make a group of ____, make it really fast, how many remainders last?" Each time we sang the song, we put a different number in the space. I started it simple, with groups of two or three, and then went up to five. We wrote the division problem on the board every time we did the chorus. The kids (and I) learned that this is measurement division!

We changed the chorus again to "come together in ____ groups, come together fast, how many remainders last?" The kids had a harder time with this kind of division, which is called partitive division. But after a few times, it got easier for them.

Then, I labeled the parts of the division problem and we sang a new verse about the vocabulary (dividend, divisor, quotient, remainder). I was worried that because the words were so big, the kids would have trouble singing this verse. But with the words on the board, they got it just fine. I also had some students come up and "conduct" the verse for me by pointing to the correct parts of the problem.

We had a bit of extra time, so I pulled out a Halloween song called "Pumpkin Stew." The song was a hit, but the partner hand game wasn't since the boys and girls didn't want to touch each other at all. So we switched it to "Witches Brew" and thought of gross things we could put in the brew. When I left, they had come up with four gross ingredients and rhythms to match. Ms. Brown took it a step further after and had them create an 8 measure section using the gross ingredients. Even though they didn't know it, we practiced dividing into groups of 2 during the partner game in "Pumpkin Stew," so it all ended up connecting in one way or another.

"My Country 'Tis of Thee"

Our second lesson was on the patriotic song "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Using a picture book, we discovered the origins of the song and how it has evolved over the last 300 years. We also compared and contrasted different versions of the song today.

First, I sang the song "America" by Samuel Francis Smith. Most of the kids had heard this before, so I invited them to sing it with me the second time. We watched a video of Aretha Franklin sing the same song at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. She sings it in a jazzy, spiritual style. The kids helped me brainstorm lots of different words to describe what they heard and saw. Then, we watched Mormon Tabernacle Choir's version. They sing it in a more classical and calm way, and the kids noticed that immediately. One of the students pointed out that the first video was sung by a woman and the second video was sung by more men. We had a short discussion about the difference between a soloist and a choir.

I pulled out the book "My Country 'Tis of Thee: How One Song Reveals the History of Civil Rights" by Claire Murphy. Since the print is small, we used the projector so that the kids could sing each new verse with me. From the book, the kids learned about how the song started out as "God Save the King," a British tune. Then the colonists changed the words during the Revolutionary War. There was a new verse written for President George Washington's inauguration. The North and the South each had their own verses during the Civil War, and President Abraham Lincoln sang a new verse with the Union after they won the war. Women wrote new verses about women's rights. Native Americans wrote about the rights they wanted. African-Americans wrote about their rights. Martin Luther King Jr. even quoted the song in his "I Have a Dream" speech. The last part of the book shows Aretha Franklin singing, and invites the children to write their own verse about a cause they believe in. I gave the students a handout to write their new verse on and next time we will sing a few of their lyric compositions.