Your car is the best classroom
The car is my best learning tool. What’s yours?
If, like me, you spend the better part of your day in the car picking up and dropping off children, get that Cheryl Cole song OUT of your CD player now and get into some really hilarious and worthwhile listening.
I used to do the school run twice a day for seven years and I swear my children picked up as much in that car time as they did at school.
My sister got me on to ‘Beethoven’s Wig‘, an album that plays you all the biggest classical tunes set to ridiculous lyrics. So, strike up Beethoven’s Fifth in your head. OK? Now, add in these lyrics:
‘Beethoven’s wig! Beethoven’s wig! Beethoven’s wig is very curly and it’s white. Beethoven takes his wig off when he sleeps at night.’
And so it goes on.
My favourite is ‘Moonlight Sonata Beep Beep Beep’ with Beethoven’s greatest piano sonata reworked to tell a story about getting stuck at traffic lights. I wonder what the great man would make of that. Have a look at this clip. It’s totally absurd BUT my children, without noticing, now hum along to all the most famous bits of classical music.
I am just worried that they think Beethoven wrote the words as well as the music. See more of this here.
Funky Thermodynamics
I am real sucker for things that make tough ideas easy for kids to grasp. If you have a 10-year old and you peer into his science book, you might well find stuff on thermal conductors. Eeeeuw! How boring that sounds – I can hardly bear to write it.
Well, if you’ve ever heard Flanders & Swann’s recording called ‘First and Second Law’ you’ll change your tune completely. Look at this video (image is irrevelant, audio only) and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Now I am unable to repeat the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics without wanting to snap my fingers, tap my feet and get up and groove around the kitchen.
My children, without even realizing, got into it too, and then completely floored their science teacher by standing up in class and repeating it perfectly, complete with dance moves.
Now they know it for the rest of their lives.
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