Submitted by Pamela Rezach, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

Idea posted July 8, 2003

I accidentally did something today that turned out exciting! I asked four children to stand up. I told the class that each child was a beat. Next, the four children were told to hold hands. Once that was done I said, "This is a WHOLE group." I then drew a whole note on the board. (As the lesson progressed I drew the appropriate note(s) on the board.)

Question: "How many beats do you see in this WHOLE group?" The class answered, "Four."

Question: I stated, "I'm going to cut this WHOLE group in two sections." I then swiped my hand in between the two middle students who were holding hands and stated, "I just cut the WHOLE group in HALF. How many groups do you see now?" The class answered, "Two."

Question: "How many beats are in each of the HALVES?" The class answered, "Two." Then, I swiped in between each of the HALVES of children/beats.


Question: "How many beats are in each group now?" The class answered, "One."

"That's right!

Question: "How many separate beats do we have now?" The class answered, "Four."

"Yes, but when they were all together we called them a WHOLE group/notes. Now that they are split in half, we call them HALF groups/notes. When the HALVES are split, we call them QUARTERS, because four separate beats stand alone."

Then I stated, "Now the fun begins. I'm going to saw each of these beats into two sections." (Everybody laughed.)

When I did a sawing motion on each child, I told each child/beat to bend over at the waist, showing two sections: one from the waist up and the another from the waist down. Then, our QUARTER students/notes were split into two sections.

Pointing to one of the bent over children, I asked:

Question: "Into how many sections is this beat sawed?" The class answered, "Two."

"You see, each QUARTER note was cut into two sections. So now how many sawed sections do we have?" The class answered, "Eight."

"So, our QUARTERS turned into EIGHTHS because we now have eight sections."

Question: "How many sections does it take to make one beat/person?" The class answered, "Two."

The students liked this so much that I had to do the process with five different groups of children. They loved it, and I know they understood it because, during the assessment game (the children played my "Music Ball

Game"*), each child recited the following:

One whole note has four beats in it.

One half note has two beats in it.

One quarter note has one beat in it.

Two eighth notes makes up one beat.

I only had to help one of the children in second grade recite this! I know the percentage would not have been that low before this lesson.

*Here's my music assessment ball game: I throw a ball, and when a child catches it, he/she has to recite whatever I suggest. He/She then throws the ball to someone else until every child catches the ball. It's a fun way for the children to hear over and over again whatever concept you want them to learn.