Teaching Time | From Fractions to Odd Meter Rhythms.
Yesterday's piano lesson was a lot of fun! I taught 7 year old S about fractions while we were playing music. I had noticed that this spunky little girl was really good at patterns. I was teaching her a mirrored chromatic scale that starts on D5.
We were looking at the piano and how starting from D going outwords with both hands, the piano is symetrical in the number and order of black and white notes. This was challenging because it required S to use both hands at the same time (using her thumb, third and second finger appropriately). I asked her if she enjoyed math in school and her mum chuckled in the background. S burst out and said that she got a C on her report card in fractions.
That blew my mind! This girl is so smart, how could she get a C in math? I was determined to use music to explain fractions. So I pointed out the time signature, that is at the beginning of every page of music, which is a 4/4 fraction.
Then we put it into a real life example...this is an abbreviated version of our conversation, but it went mostly like this.
Me: I have four apples and you have four apples. What if each of us has 3 friends, what will we do with our apples?
S: We can give each of our friends an apple.
Me: Yes, very good. How many apples do we have in total ?
S: 8
Me: How many apples do you and I have, each ?
S: 1
Me : Perfect!!!!!
S: So 1/1 is the same as 4/4.
Me: YES!!!!!
We just reduced a fraction!!!! Woo!!!! Now of course ther are a few steps missing and it's not exactly how one teaches reducing fractions, but are you kidding? This girl got it! And how exciting is that. S then asked me what happens when the numbers aren't even, something like 5/4 - so I proceeded to teach her how to clap a 5 rhythm over a 4 beat. It was really cool.
We chanted " on-on -off-off-on-on-off-off " while a metronome beated the 1 and the 3. Yes! Play based learning!!!
What gets me really excited is when kids ask questions. I'm not quite sure if there's truly "no such thing as a stupid question"... I think that saying is rediculous because it acknowledges the fact that kids- or adults- can be self-conscience about their thoughts and that they "shouldn't " filter for the sake of confidence. HOWEVER, if you teach a child how to filter their questions so that there's a level of critical thinking in between the absorbtion of previous knowledge and the next question you get BETTER QUESTIONS.
S asked me why the metronome had 2 different colour lights alternating. Red-green-red-green. I explained to her that red marked beat 1 and green marked beat 3 ( beats 2 and four were inbetween). So I asked her to play what she heard on the piano, so that 1 and 3 were different notes. She took to that very quickly and after only a few beats went by she was playing C and E in line with beats 1 and 3. Fantastic.
Yesterday's lesson went over by about 10 minutes, but for me it's worth it. It's about cultivating so much more than just money, it's about experiencing the intimacy of teaching critical thinking with a level of authenticity and proving that through that, anything can be learned - including fractions and odd metre rhythm!