Singing and Measuring with the Inchworm

Kathy Richard, who teaches second grade at Gilbert Heights Elementary in Portland, is a former music teacher. When she started teaching the new lessons from Bridges Supplement Set D2, Measuring Length in U.S. Customary Units, she couldn't help herself from singing the old Inchworm song in class. Soon, her students joined in, and the whole class fell in love with the song. Kathy decided it would be fun and motivational to have the kids record their own rendition of this classic. Her class is hoping to make a video puppet show production of Inchworm later this year. In the meantime, you can download their mp3 recording by clicking here. (You may need to right-click on the ink to save it to your computer.) If you and your children would like to sing along, here are the lyrics.

Inchworm, inchworm, measuring the marigolds,

You and your arithmetic will probably go far.

Inchworm, inchworm, measuring the marigolds,

Seems to me you’d stop and see how beautiful they are.

Two and two are four,

Four and four are eight.

Eight and eight are sixteen,

Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two.