Learning Through Songs

When I was in the 4th grade I had an amazing teacher and although I do not remember her name I do remember what and how she taught me. She was strict but caring and so much fun! Thanks to one of her teaching methods I will forever remember the prepositions! Hahah! She made a complete list of the prepositions and added a phrase to the end “without this list of preppy words you surely would go wrong remembering the preposition story”. She gave these combined words a tune and made it it into a song! Eighteen years later and I am still able to sing the entire song. It is amazing how much information we retain from listening to music or singing songs.

I actually made the spelling of my daughters’ names into a song so they could memorize them and they memorized how to spell their names within a couple of hours! The summer before my daughter began kindergarten I used the same trick so my daughter could memorize my phone number and home address. It definitely did the trick and she quickly memorized both!

That is why we teach our little ones the alphabet through song! Songs are fun and educational. I have worked with almost every age group and singing songs is always a quick way to captivate their attention. In our Pre-K class we put everything into songs; The days of the week, Months of the year, The planets, the sounds of each letter, and The continents. We even sing songs for every holiday to keep things exciting and festive!

Listening to music and singing songs make us (adults and children) happy! We release endorphins when we sing so these hormones really make us feel happy!. This alone plays a huge role in why it helps us to memorize lyrics to a song. Since children naturally enjoy singing and listening to music they tend to focus in and want to sing songs over and over. Haha! The first time I sang the Solar System song to my Pre-k class we ended up singing that song more than 10 times because my class kept asking me to sing it over and over! Of course being a teacher I just couldn’t say “no!” to education!!...BUT I definitely remember drinking a lot of water after all that singing.

Read more about the importance of Music in early development in our previous blog!