We just finished a unit on multi-digit addition and subtraction. I thought I was going to tear my hair out reviewing and re-reviewing the four main operations. We use our arms to gesture addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, so as I call out “Sum! Difference! Product! Quotient!” it winds up turning into a dance of sorts.
But we still couldn’t get consistent answers. We kept mixing up sum and difference. So I turned once more to a song. I’m looking for a catchier title…
Operations
To the Tune of “Ode to Joy”
Pro-duct answ-ers mul-tipli-ca-tion   (X)
Sum is act-ually a-ddition              (+)
Quo-tient is div-i-sion a-nd             (/)
Diffe-rence is sub-tra-ction           (-)
I attempted to put in the rhythmic breakdowns so you could see how I wound up singing it. I’ve had a few people ask me to record my songs, but although I can sing just fine, my voice sounds miserable when it’s recorded. I’m trying to figure out how to recruit my kids to help me out. I’ll definitely keep you posted!
Copyright 2009 Shannon Houghton
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