Instruments in Math Class

We have been using the instruments for many of our math activities this week.  We have played a counting game with the instruments.  A number is said and the children have to make that many sounds with their instrument.  We have talked about length when we discuss if the instrument makes a long or a short sounds.  We sorted the instruments by size. 

Today a student brought in some Boomwhackers.  They are tubes of different lengths that make different notes when you hit them against something.  The children noticed that the tubes were different sizes right away.  They found this very interesting.  We worked together as a class to arrange the tubes from shortest to longest.  Then we took turns hitting them and listening to the sounds that they make.  The children discussed that each tube made a different sound.  One child made the comparison to our water xylophone that our class created last week and said "it makes different sounds because of it's size just like the water xylophone did".  This spurred a conversation about how the glasses with a little water made sounds similar to the small tubes.  Finally, the children took turns making music with the Boomwhackers.

 

Mrs. Stoller also incorporated the instruments into her Math Activity.  The children painted with shapes to create patterns.  Then they used their instruments to play their pattern.  This lead to an activity where the children created repeating patterns with unifix cubes.