Ms. Galloway's TK/K class has been singing often this week to learn the difference between left and right, the months of the year, the days of the week, as well as the seasons. Singing is usually used in the younger grades as a way to encourage participation and repetition in order for information to stick. The more a student is singing a song about the months of the year, they are subconsciously learning the names of the months.
According to an article on SchoolRun.com, "one of the biggest benefits of singing is the repeated use of the ‘memory muscle’...Learning a piece of information attached to a tune embeds that information more rapidly in a child’s mind. The majority of children learn the alphabet not by simply saying the letters but singing them."
We incorporated this "Left vs. Right" song during math lessons to engage the children in the activity of lifting their left or right hand while beginning to understand the directions.
We start the mornings with the "Months of the Year" song and throughout the rest of the day, I often hear individual students singing "January, February, March, April, May, June, July..." to themselves during other activities.
It is important that children sing throughout the school days because similarly to pneumonic devices, they will hopefully never forget the song which in turn means they will not forget the information.