ABC and 123: A Learning Collaborative: Movement and Music: Heart Healthy for Valentine's Day

Monday, January 23, 2012

Movement and Music: Heart Healthy for Valentine's Day

Hello again!  I'm Jedda from This Little Project.  Each year around Valentine's Day I like to take some time to teach about how to help our hearts be healthy.  Everything seems to be centered around hearts at this time of year so it's great timing for some movement and music learning that's focused on making sure we have happy and healthy hearts.

Staying active is one of the best ways to help our hearts be healthy.  So today's music links are about active music-making, with some heart science and games at the end!

This one is, appropriately, "HEART and Soul."  Wouldn't it be fun to have a big piano to dance on like this?  Turn on some music and pretend your feet are making the tune like they do!


heart and soul


I think this "Stomp Song" is lots of fun.  Trying stomping your feet to the music.  You could use this song or any song that is fun to march around the room to make your own "stomp song."

Stomp Song


This is a famous "love song" that is great for kids to be able to recognize and name.  It is said that Beethoven loved Elise and wrote this song for her.  What kind of movements or dance does this song inspire in you?

"Fur Elise" (For Elise)

Learning is even more fun when your heart is involved and for some kids, the movement makes the learning happen even more efficiently.  So get ready to jump out of your chairs to learn!

These Heart-Heatlthy Games gets you moving around while you spell, learn the sounds of letters, and 
some Valentine Words--LINK to the games.



And for more about the science behind how our hearts work, check out this game and this site.

Try these fun ways to get your heart involved with your math:
Math "exercises" are really exercises when you get up off your chair!

Greater/less than number recognition game: use a deck of cards to play "war." The number that is higher wins and kids take turns doing that many jumping jacks (or sit ups, etc.)

Exercise your Answer: When you find the answer to your addition, subtraction, or multiplication problem you can "exercise" the answer.  Take that many seconds to skip, jump, or dance.  Or do like above, and the answer to your math problem tells you how many jumping jacks or sit-ups to do.

For more fun Valentine's and movement ideas stop by This Little Project for the Music @ my House series.

Have fun taking music and movement to heart!  


1 comment: