Have you ever experienced the magical power of hearing a song from the past, suddenly being transported back to distant memories? Using these Place Value and Basic Fractions music video lessons in this way, you’ll increase concept retention and transform your classroom into a multi-sensory learning environment, resulting in an amazing amount of energy and enthusiasm for learning math concepts.
Our Basic Fractions and Place Value lesson plans incorporate dancing, singing, and sharing. The key to my approach in creating these lessons was to combine my life as a songwriter with my life as an educator, which came naturally because I love both so much. After writing the first few songs for my students, parents started telling me that their children were singing the songs in the car or at dinner, and the lyrics were even being taught to younger siblings, which led me to an “Aha!” moment, where I envisioned writing a song and animation for every elementary math standard. When you incorporate either of these two lessons into your instruction, I believe you will see the same enthusiasm and feedback that I witnessed in my classroom from your students and their families. A further goal in sharing these videos and lessons with fellow teachers is to help alleviate the pressure educators often feel from the constant focus on rigid testing, tracking, and monitoring. You’ll find that learning math can become a subject that students can truly enjoy, appreciate, and master.
Video summary: Ride along next to Rob as he rides through the country learning about place value. In his journey through a pear orchard, he’ll discover that ten ones make ten, ten tens make one hundred, and ten hundreds make one thousand. Then he begins an epic bike ride – 100 miles! Holy Moly!
In class the next day, Rob discovers the thousands place while playing with his base ten blocks; he’s so excited that he knocks over his tower of blocks, jumps on top of the rubble, and plays an EPIC air bass line! By the end of the video, he’ll find that even after the thousands place, the place value pattern he has discovered has no end; a truth that casts him into a state of quiet contemplation as he chomps on a pear. Watch this Place Value video!
Your student(s) are going to love learning about fractions as we eat pies, see birds in the skies, and even win an Olympic prize! Three new NUMBEROCK characters come to life in this informative and easy-to-understand introduction to fractions. The numerator and denominator are shown in 3 real-world examples before introducing to students the idea of fractions on a number line, all the while reinforcing that fractions are equal parts of a whole. Watch this Basic Fractions video!
Videos… Plus Worksheets, Games, and More!
When you purchase the Place Value or Basic Fractions lessons, you’ll see that they include so much more than just a video. You’ll get personal recommendations for how to introduce the materials and set-up the lessons as I do in class, by using our clear lesson plans. Along with an HD video download, each lesson includes a lyric sheet for singing along and a fill in the blanks, so that after students watch the video, they can master the math vocabulary by filling in the missing words. Also included are well-thought-out questions and word problems, which challenge critical thinking skills, and extra drills printables for early finishers. When these activities are completed, you can check for concept mastery, while the class has a bit of fun with a printable game based on the video. Other components include a printable poster with characters from the video, a mini-book (Basic Fractions lesson only), a homework assignment, and a short quiz to check for concept mastery.
Ben Hehn has his Masters in Teaching from UMass Dartmouth and has been a 5th grade public school teacher for 7 years. He’s also been a supervising teacher for Tufts University graduate and Harvard University undergraduate student teachers. He’s developed lots of math lessons and fun activities for his 5th graders over the years. The motto in his classroom has not been to “open your math books,” but rather, “Let’s Rock Math!” He’ll be releasing new songs and videos all the time until eventually filling in all the necessary mathematical concepts for grades K-6 that are covered in an academic year. Ben’s goal is to make teaching and learning math more fun and more interactive, in order to instill a love for the subject. Please visit the NUMBEROCK TpT store in order to enjoy his ever-evolving library of videos and concepts and do your part to make
learning rocking math more fun!
Here are some snapshots of Ben and his family.