Perhaps your answer is NO, but I have to tell you YES, it is possible.
One of the seven multiple intelligences that coexist is music/rhythmic intelligence, in which we can use a lot of resources. The one that I want you to learn is Jazz Chant.
That consist on creating a rhythm using our hands, making noises with objects or whatever. Then children start singing what they are reading on their books or sheets, in this way they will learn something while they are enjoying with the lesson.
Perhaps the theory doesn`t sound very well, so let's see the example I did in class with my group. We chose the subject of Science to develop the activity, because Science sometimes is a hard subject. The topic that we chose was livestock farming. Unfortunatly I don`t have the video of our representation, however I can show you the lyrics of our jazz chant and you can try to sing it inventing your own rhythm.
"What do we do in a livestock faming?
We breed,
we look after
and we sell domestic animals.
What do we find in a livestock farming?
We find sheeps,
we find goats,
we find chickens, cows and pigs, pigs, pigs.
What can we get from all these animals?
We get meat,
we get wool,
we get mil, leather and eggs, eggs, eggs."
I hope you liked my post and you want to create jazz chants in class to make your students enjoy while learning.
Ester ^_^
I agree with you Ester! Jazz chants are a very useful resource to learn. I love your song, and I have also liked create our own Jazz Chants, its structure was question and answer integrating vocabulary about the villages.
ReplyDeleteAs you have explained the Jazz Chants are composed by a rhythm and a topic but I also think that besides of the topic and the rhythm, it would be better if we support it introducing gestures and/or images because children will know what you are talking about without translating.
An example of the power of Jazz Chants is that sometimes I have not remembered the name of some parts of the body and I have immediately thought in the song “head, shoulders, knees and toes”; and I have sang it in my mind with the rhythm and I have also done the gestures. I am sure that you have done the same! Therefore it helps us to learn but also to remember.
Another way to motivate students is to let them create their own Jazz Chant using the topic or the vocabulary we want them to learn and the rhythm that they want. In this way, they are going to work with the topic (taking the main ideas) or the vocabulary (reading it many times in order to organize the words in the best way to learn it) and they will use rhythms from series, or songs that they like. Therefore, they will learn in a personalized and better way because they are integrating it in their personal life and experience.
In conclusion, it will be a motivated way to learn for children because they are involved learning whilst enjoying.