Using Songs To Increase Learning

Have you ever used music in your classroom to help cement a concept or an idea?  Music has been found to stimulate parts of the brain, and studies have demonstrated that music can enhance memory. Using music and songs in the classroom is a great way to help your students retain information and increase their learning.

My students were having a rough time remembering the difference between area and perimeter and how to find each of them.  I saw a video on Miss 5th's Instagram feed and I knew I wanted to try it with my students!  If you are not following her on Instagram or Facebook, you need to because she has a ton of great ideas just like this Bucket Filler idea I shared a few weeks ago.

She had a song that she had made up using the pop song "My House" by Flo-Rida.  Here are my students singing and dancing to the song.

The lyrics are:

Welcome to my house

We can find the area

Multiply the length times width

We don't have to go out

Welcome to my house 

We can find the perimeter

Take a walk outside

and add up all the sides

For the music I searched up My House instrumental version and found this one by JBFlex.

itunes Version

Google Play Version

I play it at the :31 seconds section and they sing right after the siren sound as you can see in the video above.

My students were so excited about this song that they started writing versions of their own to all sorts of songs for all types of concepts.  Every day they are coming up with a new song to sing to me!

And... yes, they ALL know how to calculate area and perimeter now!

Have you used songs to increase learning?  I would love to hear your ideas.  If you try this one, I would love to hear how it goes!