Science-How does sound work?

The goal of this lesson is to teach your child all about sound and sound waves. It is something you can do at home with supplies laying around the house. The only thing you may not have at home are the 6 glass bottles, I pulled mine out of recycling, if you don't have them just use glasses with water and have them tap on the side rather than blow and tap.

Level --3/4th grade--extensions for older kids


Materials
Cups-paper or foam (we used plastic solo cups)
rubber bands
6 glass bottles
pencil
wooden ruler
paper plate
rice
radio
string
paperclip
water
scissors

Objectives
After doing this activity your child(ren) should be able to identify a variety of sounds, recognize that vibrations produce sounds, know that sounds travel through gas, liquid, and matter, experiment with volume and pitch, apply knowledge of pitch to create a tune.

Activity


I always like to start out a lesson by questioning to see what kids already know in the classroom, I do this at home too. I asked Kamrin and his friend what makes sound--this seemed to stump them for a minute, but his friend then yelled out vibrations-great they had some background in the subject.

I found a small lab book go to with this lesson. We were going to work through it, if you need a copy message me with your email and I'll send it to you. The first page just asks students to identify different sounds and tell what makes them. Some of the answers I got were a dog bark..his voice, an airplane...the engine, a bird...it's voice. Let your child answer anything, if it is wrong you can go back and visit the page again at the end of the activity. At that time they should be able to make corrections.

After this you should do a series of activities to introduce sounds and work with them. There are 10 total that we did and each one took about 5-10 minutes.

1. How to make sounds-give your child(ren) a cup, rubber band, pencil and a bottle and have them make as many sounds as they can. Ask them to write down what they did to make the sounds and the materials they used for each different sound.

2. Good vibrations-use the wooden ruler, lay it on the edge of the table/desk, hold the end down with your hand. Press down hard on the other and and then let go.
Answer--What did you hear?
What did you see?

This should let your child(ren) see the vibration in the ruler--if they already don't know that vibrations create sound this activity should do the trick.









3. Rubber Band Guitar- this is the old fashion stretch a rubber band over a cup and pluck it activity. Before you start have your child(ren) put their ear near the cup and ask what they hear...they should say nothing. Then have them pluck the rubber band and put their ear near the cup, ask what they hear. Also, have them observe the rubber band and what is happening. Again they should notice the vibrations.






4.  Rockin' Rice- again this is old fashioned but it works! Have your child put some rice on a paper plate, you don't need much. Place the plate on/as near to a radio speaker as you can. Turn on some music that has a good base line. Again ask what they observes. Ask why the rice moves.  Make a prediction..what will happen if you turn the radio off, or pick a song with no base line?



5. Vocal Vibrations-All you need for this is your body. Have your child put their hand on their neck near their voice box. What do they feel (nothing).  Then have them start humming...now what? Now start talking...what's different? I also had the boys say things in a low deep voice and a high pitched voice to see the difference in what they felt and heard. This isn't inluced in my lab book but I wanted to make sure we hit some more advanced concepts during our activities.

 This is when I introduced the concept of sounds waves and we began to talk about amplitude and pitch. This can be done if your child is ready for this concept. I will include some links to online reinforcements at the end of this post that I recommend you do over the next few days. This site will give basic info in a way kids can understand.
http://www.sciencekidsathome.com/science_topics/what_is_sound.html

We spent some time drawing different waves to represent different amplitudes and pitches. They caught on quickly.

6. How sound travels-This one is easy and helps kids understand how sound waves travel through gas (the air) and solids (desk or table). Tap on the desk, describe what you hear. Do the same thing but this time put your ear on the desk the same distance away as it was when you were tapping before. Which is louder (when your ear is on the desk), so does sound travel better through a solid or a gas? What do you think if we had a liquid?

7. String telephone- Again an oldie but a goody. Have your children stand about 5 feet apart. If its just you and one child then do this with them. Hold cups up to your ears and take turns talking into one while the other listens. Can you hear well?


Then connect the two cups with a string. Hold the cups up again and take turns talking into one. Use the same volume you used before...can you hear better? Why? How does the sound travel to your ear?

8. Loud or soft?- Tap a pencil or something similar against the desk, describe the sound.  How can you make the same sound but softer? Louder? Stretch a rubber band around a cup like you did before, pluck the string, describe the sound. How can you make it softer? Louder?





9. High or low?-Set the six bottles up with a larger amount of water in each bottle. Have your child blow across the top of each bottle. Which bottle makes the lowest sound? Which make the higher...why?
Then tap the bottles with a pencil...answer the same questions.


10. Bottle Tune-This is fun for the kids and a great way to wrap up the hands on activity. I number the bottles1-6 number 1 being the bottle with the lowest amount of water. I then showed the kids a pattern and had them tap out the song on the bottles.
3.4.5.4.3.3.3
4.4.4.3.2.2.
3.4.5.4.3.3.3
4.4.3.4.5
It's Mary Has a Little Lamb

They got it after two or three tries. After that I gave them time to create and record their own tunes, they then took turns playing each others tune.

Assessment/Check for Understanding
After doing all of these activities your child should meet all of the learning objectives. Take some time to review vibrations, sound waves and talk a little about what you did. I normally don't push to much after doing so much hands on activities, instead I have Kamrin do review activities over the next few days and keep questioning to make sure he got it.

If you aren't a member of a site like edhelper I highly recommend it. The cost is minimal and you can create great extensions activities. I created a 4th grade level packet on sound from the site and it took about 5 minutes. It gives Kamrin something to read and answer every day for the next 5 days. This will keep sound fresh in his mind and also incorporate some reading comprehension with his science lesson.


In addition we will do some review work online after doing other lessons over the next week.
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/gamesactivities/changingsounds.html
http://www.noisyplanet.nidcd.nih.gov/tweens/Pages/coolstuff.aspx



I hope these science activities help you introduce sound and vibrations to your child. Please leave comments about what worked for you, extensions you may have come up with, and any questions!

Welcome!

Many parents spend the summer sending their child to camp or letting them do sports or other activities. Research has shown that disregarding academics for ten or more weeks can be detrimental to your child's learning. This is even more the case when it comes to children in those special elementary years where the foundations are being laid for so many subjects. Your 2nd or 3rd grader may have learned all of their times tables and math facts in school and with those 10 weeks off and no practice they can lose their ability. The same applies to those formative years in reading and so on--it is true--if you don't use it you will lose it!

As a parent I know it can be expensive to send your child to an academic program for the summer. Even when you do send your child they are there with many other children and may not get the attention or practice they need. So what can you do?

I am going to be working at home with my rising 3rd grade son, We will do activities almost every day to promote learning and prepare for the third grade. He is advanced in almost all subjects so we will be doing a lot of 4th and 5th grade work. The only place I can see us actually sticking to the standards for 3rd grade is in Social Studies-we will be incorporating a lot of government and economics to supplement US history. Although we live in GA we will follow the National Core Curriculum standards to base our work and also the IB curriculum for PYP.

I will be posting and blogging about our activities here on this site. I, like many parents, am on a serious budget so our activities will be low or no cost. I will include variations for grades 3-5 so you can do what is developmentally appropriate for your child.

I will include links to online games and clear descriptions of what you can do at home to promote learning and to help develop a love of learning in your child this summer. Please go to the link below and subscribe to this blog now. The posts will start during the second week of May but don't wait until then to subscribe to get updates!

As always I love to get feedback. Please comment with questions and let me know what worked and what didn't work for you when you did an activity with your child.  Also, let me know great sites and activities you have found so I can share them with all readers.

Thanks in advance for subscribing and I hope you are getting ready for a great summer break!