Arts In The Classroom

Peek into an early childhood classroom at any given moment you’re likely to find music and movement. You’ll probably see educators singing classic children’s songs and nursery rhymes like BINGO or The Itsy Bitsy Spider. We all do it, but do you know why we do this? What magical power do these songs and rhymes bring to the classroom that makes us use them week after week and year after year?

The magical power is art. Art is brain magic!

As technology improves and we learn more and more about the brain, we can see exactly how art not only supports learning, but it is learning. Take The Itsy Bitsy Spider for example.

I bet it’s already playing out in your head!

The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out!

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,

And the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.

You remember this song after all these years because brains love rhythm, rhyme, and repetition. They also love positive emotional connections, multi-sensory experiences, and movement, and this one hits all the marks for the brain to take notice of the activity, and save the information for later. When we sing this song, we use rhythm, rhyme, and repetition because, of course, we’ll have so much fun the first time so we will sing it twice! Rhythm and rhyme are proven through research to be foundational skills necessary for learning to read. When we sing this with children we hear the song (auditory music) and move our hands to act out the story of the spider (kinesthetic, drama.) By acting out the song lyrics we enhance vocabulary and comprehension, which is valuable for speaking at a young age and later for reading and writing. When we sing this song with children they feel a positive emotional connection, both to the spider who tries again and succeeds, and to the adult they are joyfully singing with. Children engaged in singing about the itsy bitsy spider learn a valuable social-emotional lesson through the story of resilience, one they can use later to help them persevere when playtime presents challenges. That’s a lot of skill development for a quick song!

“Art in the classroom not only spurs creativity, it also inspires learning.”

- Mickey Hart

A cautionary tale- Before you choose to watch a video of the song instead of sitting and singing together, consider this: When you sing and act this out together the part of the brain that needs to imagine things to understand them (sometimes called visualization or the mind’s eye) activates to create a picture that helps make sense of the words and ideas. This is a skill children need to develop before they learn to read, so that when books no longer have pictures, text still makes sense. However, if you watch a video instead, the brain will not practice this important skill.

Ultimately remember this: Art is brain magic. The next time you feel like you need to amp up your lessons for learning, take a closer look at what you are already doing, and ask yourself what arts are we engaged in, and how many developmental skills are included in our daily routines of song, dance, and movement? Then, look for small moments to get those children’s brains practicing rhythm and rhyme and much more through music and movement that goes along with your topic of study or storytime book, and see the learning magic happen right before your eyes!