Music All Around Me

Music All Around Me - Music CD

Hartmann, Jack. Math All Around Me: Making Early Childhood Math Fun Through Music 'N' Movement. Hop 2 It Music, 1998. CD.

Summary: Jack Hartmann takes basic math skills and sets them to music. Skills include shape recognition, patterns, basic counting, calendar skills, and counting on. 

Strength/Weaknesses: Most children love music and many of the songs on this album would be useful to supplement teaching basic math skills. Count by 2’s is a great one to teach skip counting at this age. Hartmann's music is popular with many in early childhood. According to one Pre-k teacher, "Jack Hartmann is like the early childhood equivalent of Bon Jovi. Every time he is at a convention, it is packed and everyone is jumping and screaming and singing along."

A few of the songs, however, seemed to be a stretch for math (Shake Your Hands, for example) and there was not much variety in how the songs were performed.  Too often the songs sounded much like the one preceding it and gave the CD as a whole a monotonous feel.

Uses: Because of their repetitive nature, many of the songs would be very useful in a Pre-k and kindergarten class to help teach and reinforce math skills. Birthdays and Today, Yesterday & Tomorrow are good examples to use when teaching about the calendar. And while Going on a Treasure Hunt is one that I would not use in math, Preschool children will love the call and response nature and movement of the song. 

Audience: Math All Around Me is recommended for ages 3-8.

Awards: This CD has won no awards.