Math in Motion: How Integrating Dance and into a Math Classroom Affects a Student’s Ability to Learn

Abstract

This research explores how placing dance and whole body movements into the math classroom at an elementary level help children better understand and develop a greater appreciation of basic mathematical concepts. More specifically, it looks at what effect the muscle memory that is developed while moving has on retaining information in a scholastic setting. Due to decreased funding in schools, programs in the arts are disappearing. I look at the positive effects of the arts in schools and how the integration and implementation of them with a core subject can be essential to a child’s learning experience. With the help of research from Karl Schaffer and Erik Stern, specialists in the field of math and dance for over thirty years, connections are made between the studies of mathematics and dance. Lesson plans focus on dance concepts with pattern recognition, symmetry, and basic geometry at an elementary level to improve mathematical thinking in children through the methods of the Multiple Intelligences Theory and Arts Integration.