PreK Music: Can This Be A Place For STEAM? Amy Burns & Stephanie Santos Far Hills Country Day School aburns@fhcds.org
I
n the May 2014 Issue of TEMPO, I wrote an article titled, “When PreK Music Is Added To The Schedule,” because through social media and networking at conferences, I met more music educators who were newly assigned to teaching PreK music. As I stated in that article, one of the reasons I love my job so much is because I have the opportunity to teach PreK music and to bring music education to students as young as three years old. One of the hottest topics in education over the past few years has been STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). I first saw STEM in action when two of the science teachers at Far Hills Country Day School, Jen Wagar and Julie Blanco, presented to the faculty about a webinar that they had taken that involved changing STEM to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics). Their presentation inspired me as they taught us that although STEAM is an acronym, it is more a philosophy based on the integration of these subjects across the curriculum. Jen and I partnered to create a STEAM unit for the third grade music and science classes that included students experiencing and problem-solving real world situations. During this unit, third graders created music and instruments using science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. An article about this unit is included in the January 2015 Issue of TEMPO titled, “Integrating With Integrity In The General Music Classroom.” Is There A Way To Incorporate STEAM Into The Music Classroom, Especially The PreK Music Classroom? When educators, including music educators, are approached to think about the possibility of collaborating on a STEAM project, PreK students may not be the age group that first comes to mind. However, this year at Far Hills Country Day School, our PreK program is using a project approach learning method in which typically small groups investigate topics that emerge through their play and capture their interest. The students are encouraged to formulate questions to be answered by investigation, make predictions about what the answers might be, compare their findings with those predictions, and provide some way of communicating their understandings. This year, our PreK program added the “Studio” room, led by PreK teacher, Stephanie Santos. When I explored the Studio, Stephanie showed me a wonderful, hands-on learning environment in which the students use a variety of materials to explore and create. At the beginning of the school year, the first music classes I had with the PreK were ones during which they explored the four families of classroom percussion instruments: woods, drums, shakers, and metals. Our first family was woods. TEMPO 48
JANUARY 2016
