Sound Travels #10 - Express Feelings and Thoughts

On Tuesday, the children explored how music and sound are used to express feelings and thoughts (perspective). We sang the folk song "Daddy Loves the Bear". Here are the words:

Daddy loves the bear, 
Daddy loves the bear, 
Daddy loves the bear and gives it lots of care/takes it everywhere. 

Here are some of their thoughts or actions when they sang the song:
Alfie said: "It is caring."
Theo said: "You can give kisses."
Allye was swaying from side to side.  
We discussed more about caring (one of the ten IB profile words). What does it look like when you are caring to the bear? 

Brendan: I will hold it gently.
Molly: I will hug it. 

We ended group time by making a fuzzy teddy bear card for the ones we care about. 

Sound Travels #9 - Beats and Rhythms

 Yesterday, the Water group took a closer look at two different forms in a song, the beat and the rhythm. What is the difference between a beat and a rhythm? We used Hickory Dickory Dock to help us understand. First we tapped out the beat (tick tock of the clock) then we tapped the rhythm (words of the rhyme). We even created symbols (triangles for the beats and circles for the rhythms) to help us follow the beat and the rhythm.

Dotting Bumpety, Bumpety, Yellow Bus

Even though it seems a bit confusing for the children to understand, they did notice that a beat is steady but a rhythm can change and has different patterns. Today we practiced beat and rhythm with the song Bumpety, Bumpety, Yellow Bus and created a song dot map to add to our form book that the children are currently working on.

Beats and rhythm for Hickory Dickory Dock

Sound Travels #8 - Bumpety, Bumpety Yellow Bus

Experimenting rhythms with the tone bars has guided us into our next concept: form. What are a few forms of folk song games? We sang the song "Bumpety, Bumpety, Yellow Bus" and the children were especially interested in the syllables that make up their names. We dotted the syllables on paper. I could see from the concentration on their faces that they were linking the syllables they hear to the dots. To help us see the song, we drew a song map.

If you would like to know more about our song games (Sound to Symbol methodology), please visit http://www.livinglanguageinstitute.org/page14.html

Sound Travels #7 - Pitch

Measuring with Unifix Cubes

Yesterday the children collected some data from the guitar they made and tried to figure out why the strings make different sounds. First, they used Unfix cubes as a measurement to measure the length of each elastic band stretched across the guitar. Then they plucked each band to see if it made
a high sound or a low sound. After we organized all the data, we found that the longest elastic band made the highest sound and the shortest elastic band made the lowest sound. I explained to the children that the high and low of a sound is called the pitch. When the elastic band is stretched, it will create a faster moving sound wave and a higher pitch. When the elastic band is not stretched as much, the sound waves move slower and produces a lower pitch.

Selecting a tone bar

Using what we know about pitches, the children each picked a tone bar and compared it with each other. They noticed some bars have high pitches and some have lower ones. As they played their notes, Theo said that it sounded like a song. So we put our tone bars together and each child took turn playing the tune. When it was Molly's turn, she played the song with a rhythm. This inspired the other children to create their own rhythms too. 

Sound Travels #6 - "Seeing" Sound Waves

The children now know that sound waves can travel through air. We can feel and hear the vibrations from sound waves but we cannot see them. I told the children that I have a very special app (Wavepad) on my ipad that someone created to help us imagine what sound waves would look like. The children each recorded their own voice on the app and saw waves. They immediately noticed that some waves are small and some are big. After a few recordings, they started to see that soft voices made small waves and loud voices made high waves.


In addition, the other day when we were creating vibrations with elastic band, Alfie noticed that his elastic band sounds different when it is stretched differently? Why? So the children made their own guitars and we are going to investigate why do the strings make different sounds?

Decorating our guitar

Jamming with our friends

Sound Travels #5 - More about Vibrations

Feeling the vibration from our throats

As I was reviewing sounds and vibrations (the jumping macaroni) with the children yesterday, Kate came by and shared her thoughts with us. Is the jumping macaroni vibrations or a movement caused by the vibrations? Her question made us ponder and inquire more into vibrations.

Sound traveling through the table

Today, I asked the children if they could see sounds and they answered no right away and mentioned we hear sounds. Then I explained to them that we can't really see vibrations and Alfie said: "But we can see waves!" (from the previous experiment) I told him he was right but the waves were movements caused by the vibration, we cannot see sound waves but we can use things to help us see the movements that sound waves create. So today, to help the children understand that vibrations create sound waves which move through mediums before reaching our ears, we tried another experiment.

Each child received a piece of tin foil. Then they sprinkled little pieces of tissue paper that they had cut up on top of the tin foil. Next they clapped their hands together right next to the tin foil. Their objective was to move the tissue paper with the waves of the vibrations that came through their claps.

Sound Travels #4 - Sounds through Vibrations

Observing the water

 I began group time with an experiment with the children today. I filled a bowl with water and asked the children to observe. I struck the side of the bowl and here are their observations:

Molly: I see waves.

Allye: The water jumps out.

Alfie: I hear "ding".

Different ways to pluck the elastic

I told them the tiny waves they see are called vibrations. Below is our conversation to connect vibrations to sounds:

No movement from water.

Mary: Can you hear a "ding" now?

Children: No.

I hit the side of the bowl.

Children: I hear "ding"!

Mary: Do you see the vibrations too?

Children: Yes!

Mary: Now look closely and see what you notice about the vibrations and the "ding" at the same time.

I hit the side of the bowl again.

Alfie: There's waves when the ding starts!

Molly: And when the ding goes away the vibration disappear!

Feeling the vibrations

I love it the way they collaborate together to get a conclusion! I explained further that sound is produced through vibrations. 

The children checked their understanding with elastic bands and a jumping macaroni game. The group was very creative in finding ways to produce sounds and vibrations with the elastic bands. The children had a blast when they tried to make the macaroni jump off the drum through vibrations.