Submitted by Stephanie Menefee, Tacoma, Washington
Idea posted August 26, 2003
I did something with my summer school kids that worked like a charm! Like most kids (I'm assuming), most of my students have a very difficult time understanding that just because ti-ti has two notes, it is not two beats, and likewise with ta-ka-ta-ka and four beats. I teach in a Montessori school, and part of our math materials/manipulatives is a box with bead bars in it. These bars are color-coded and have one through ten beads (ten different compartments, each with a different number bar). I pulled them out last week and used the one, two, and four bars to represent ta, ti-ti, and ta-ka-ta-ka. I explained that each bead was a note and that each bar (or chain, as I initially called them) was one beat, and it didn't matter how many beads were on that bar. They got it! I could pull out a six, or even the ten, and they could tell me how many notes and how many beats. Then I gathered them around a table and let each one of them (we have small groups, no larger than about 10 or 11) create their own four-beat pattern using the beads. The patterns they came up with were quite complex! We read each pattern forewards and backwards and then moved on to the next person.
Here's the best part. I was thinking today and realized that each of you could easily and relatively inexpensively make your own set of bead bars! All you would need would be the plastic craft beads that some people use for belts, and either regular yarn or the plastic lanyard material. You could create your own bead colors for each, or you could use the Montessori colors: red for one, green for two, and yellow for four. For further extension, three is pink and six is lavender. These can transfer nicely to the overhead as a step to figuring out the beat value of the written notes. I'm still trying to figure out how to represent the notes bigger than the quarter.