Clap Happy

This term I am having so much fun teaching music. I am aiming to have a singing playground and so have been teaching the children singing games they can play outside at lunch and break times.  We also have a stage and outdoor chimes and so I've been using those for composing lessons and I just love the freedom of lessons outside.  

Last week, watching 4 year olds run on the spot, panic and run round in circles while trying to decide which way to chase around the circle, while playing A Tisket A Tasket had me laughing so much my sides hurt.  I was still laughing when the 8 and 9 year olds were bouncing balls in time to a rhyme.  My favourite; One Two Three O'Leary challenged hand-eye and leg co-ordination to the point where more balls were attracted to eyes than they were to hands.  The children who went to first aid were very keen to explain that they had been learning something and not just having fun.  

This week I am planning clapping games and while I know they are excellent for children's development of a sense of pulse and rhythm (which since no one dances to live music any more is so important) do seem to have questionable morals.  I remember singing, "My mother told me, if I was goody, that she would buy me, a rubber Johnny, my Aunty told her, I kissed a soldier, now she won't buy me a rubber Johnny."  Now that I'm grown up I think her mother had it all wrong.  Once she'd kissed the soldier she really needed that rubber Johnny.  Looking back, I possibly went to quite a rough school because we also sang "Oh Sir Jasper" and "4 and 20 Virgins went down to Inverness, when the party was over there were 4 and 20 less."  There was also a song about rolling in the clover that I can't remember all the words to. Researching hand clapping rhymes on the internet today I found this gem:

There is a guy over there

Who's got one eye
He says he loves me but that's a lie
Cause his hair don't curl and his boots don't shine
and he ain't got the money to buy me.

Prostitution in playground games, seems to be a classic theme.  

I also found this one that I probably won't be sharing with the class.  They are too bright to take the risk, of them going home and saying that I had taught them to say the word ass or hell. 

Miss Molly had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell,

Miss Molly went to heaven, the steamboat went to...
HELL-o operator, please give me number 9,
And if you disconnect me I'll kick you in behind
The 'frigeraator, there was a piece of glass,
Miss Molly sat upon it, and hurt her little...
ASk me no more questions, I'll tell you no more lies,
The cows are in the meadow, making chocolate pies.
Yum yum!

I am also sure that I can't handle the imagery of children eating cow-pats.

In my research I have also found some very complicated clapping patterns by American children who seem to approach these games as training for cheer leading practice.  They wiggle and pout and sing the rhyme so fast that you know the competition of being the fastest, loudest, with the sexiest wiggle is more important than the rhyme or the pulse.  

I've always known that these playground games are fun and great for development of musical skills but until today I was unaware of a piece of research done at Ben-Gurion University in Israel by Dr Sulkin, who studied the effect of hand clapping games on the development of cognitive abilities. They found that children who spontaneously took part in clapping games had neater handwriting and were better at spelling.  They went to schools and engaged children in a 10 week programme of hand clapping games, listening to Mozart, or with no musical input and they found that,"Within a very short period of time, the children who until then hadn't taken part in such activities caught up in their cognitive abilities to those who did," for those children who had been part of the hand clapping group.  Their teachers also reported that the children became more socially integrated and there were significant improvements in the work of dyslexic or dyscalculate children. I'm thrilled that it's better than listening to Mozart.  I like Mozart but games are more fun.  Dr Sulkin was particularly interested in the fact that these games naturally disappear from children's lives after primary school and wondered if they had a special developmental function.  So she asked adults to participate in these games too.  She found that,  "Once they start clapping, they report feeling more alert and in a better mood."  

I am looking forward to feeling more alert and in a better mood next week.