Group TIme Sept. 27

Line of Inquiry: How sounds are made and heard

The children enjoyed playing the song game Clickety Clickety Clack again today. The game requires them to work cooperatively as they move forwards, backwards, and forwards again. It was hard to keep the singing going from all the giggles! In the end, we made it, inviting one child at a time to join our train and no one fell down!

SOUND TRAVELS! Wearing a blindfold the children took turns identifying where the sound of the maraca was coming from. They're enthusiasm and excitement had us playing the game for 20 minutes as they asked "Can I have another turn!"

                                                              

Group Time Sept. 26

Line of Inquiry: How sounds are made and heard

The games the children played today helped them practice identifying sounds.  I used hidden musical instruments to make a sound and the children made a guess. Then the children wanted a turn to make a sound!

Donald Crews' story Shortcut is about children who decide to take a shortcut home and walk along the train tracks. Soon they hear the sounds of an oncoming train! Danger mounts and the children narrowly escape harm. The children participated in the story telling by making the train sounds.  A song game was played "Clickety Clickety Clack" and everyone joined the train as it moved forward, backward and forward again. Everyone co-operated and worked together to build a train track. The sounds of trains and whistles chugging along were great as the children lost themselves in play!

Group Time Sept. 20

Line of Inquiry: How sounds are created and heard

Ears Hear!

The children know they have ears. Who else has ears? Using books the children researched and looked for ears and discovered that some animals had ears they could see and some didn't. They practiced sharing their research by telling the person beside them.

Everyone had an opportunity to choose a set of ears: human, cat, dog, and rabbit, and attach them to headbands

 Our ears catch sounds in the air. To illustrate this the children tried "sound catchers". Looks of surprise spread quickly as the children heard their own voices as they echoed "Hello . . . hello . . . hello!"

Wind Group Sept. 12 & 13

This week we are investigating the line of inquiry "How sounds are created and heard"

"SOUND IS VIBRATION"

"What is vibration?" the children had no idea. 

To understand the meaning of vibration we conducted many experiments:

1) make a vibration board: the children helped to hammer 4 nails onto a board and stretched two elastics across. When the elastics were plucked they vibrated!

2) place rice on a drum and band a pot loudly beside to watch the rice vibrate on the drum

3) touch your larynx and feel the vibrations

4) hold a balloon next to your mouth and say "Aahhhh" and feel the balloon vibrate

To gain insight into the children's understanding of sound we played a sorting game with picture cards: things that make sound and things that don't

I always love when I bring an activity with a predicted outcome and the children's perspective changes my thinking! The children had their own ideas about what things make sound:

"A bed squeaks!" - Kai

"Grapes crunch with your teeth" - Natalya

"A pear crunches"- Chloe