Sound Travels: Sounds and Feelings

Certain sounds in our environment evoke feelings within us. 

Identifying facial expressions

To help the children become more aware of this they first identified feelings from facial expressions.

I introduced the idea that some sounds can cause us to feel certain feelings and we listened 

to different sounds and talked about our reactions. The children were accepting of the fact 

that they had different perspectives and it was okay to feel differently. 

Reflecting on how we feel

We listened to an ambulance siren, an dog barking, a witches laugh, howling wind.

Music can have the same effect!

We listened to Bach's Organ Toccata and it didn't take long for most of the 

children to express the music made them feel scared. 

It's not surprising that this piece of music is often in music scores for horror movies!

This music makes me feel:

Roy - happy          Bela - scared

Esme - happy          Jason - scared

Oliver - happy        Trystan - mad

Rylan - mad          Tyreese - scared

Rielle - sad        Alexis - happy

Sophie - happy

Sound Travels: Songs Have Form

Line of Inquiry: Folk song games have specific form

The children continued their work with the folk song game "Daddy Loves the Bear"
and practiced pre-reading skills

After I drew the form for the song (two shorts and a long) we sang the song and followed the map with our fingers only this time we listened for the word 'bear'. When 'bear' was sung I stopped and a child glued a picture of a bear on the map where it was heard. They discovered that bear is sung 3 times. 

Making my own song form map

It was an interesting process to see their thinking; the word bear is sung at the end of both short lines and I  asked them to predict where the third bear would be in the song and they all guessed at the end of the long line. They were surprised to see it was found in the middle of the long line and the word 'everywhere' was at the end. The children attempted their own song map as we sang the song together.

The same process was done for "Hot Cross Buns"
"Hey! It's the same!" said Byron - two shorts and a long

Sound Travels: Expressing Feelings

Line of Inquiry:

Music is used to express feelings and thoughts

Folk songs have specific form

The summative activity at the end of this unit will have the children create a piece of music expressing their idea. They will need to understand that songs have form, we explored this concept today with Daddy Loves the Bear

In this song game the children take turns holding and expressing love to the bear while we sing.

Daddy loves the bear

Daddy loves the bear

Daddy loves the bear and takes it everywhere.

The form for the song is

-----------------

-----------------

---------------------------------

Two shorts and a long. "Just like Clickety Clack!" noticed Oliver

 (we had studied the form of Clickety Clack in music class this morning)

The children made a bear puppet and we expanded the song by adding the children's ideas.

"What else could daddy do with the bear?"

Slide -Rielle

Brings -Tyreese and Alan

Walks -Esme 

Swim -Rylan

Rides - Sophie

Dance - Oliver 

Sound Travels: Sound Recognition

We explored sounds in our environment with the help of the story 

"The Sounds Around Town" by Maria Carluccio.

"What sounds do things make?"

We explored sounds the children were curious about using an online sound library.

"A volcano" - Byron

"A car" - Rylan

"A boat" - Alan

were a few of the ideas.

"Do you know the sound of your own voice?"

The children took turns recording themselves saying a word or phrase and then playing it back to hear how they sound. Then I played them back without saying who it was - can they recognize whose voice it is? Yes they can! We presented the guessing game to the other groups. The hardest part was keeping it a secret! The other children found it difficult to recognize the voices. 

Presenting the game

Making a Sound Book

To communicate what we know everyone selected an object to draw 

and what sound it makes and drew a picture of it for a book we'll make.

Sophie "This is a baby, it goes waa waa"

Jayla "This is a face, it goes talk talk"

Sophie "This is a baby, it goes waa waa"

Rylan "This is a train, it goes choo choo"

Alan "This is a gun, it goes boom"

Rielle "This is a trumpet, it goes trump trump"

Tyreese "This is a crocodile, it goes roar"

Byron "This is a car, it goes vroom"

Illustrating the sound book

New School Year & New Unit!

Hello old and new parents! Each week Debbie and I will send you links to our blogs reporting the activities your child is doing in group time. We encourage you to look at the pictures with your child as a wonderful way to share in their day. 

Central Idea:

People use sound to express  feelings and thoughts

Lines of Inquiry:

Folk song games have specific forms (form)

How sounds are experienced (causation)

Environmental sounds cause certain feelings to arise (perspective)

How music and sound are used to express feelings and thoughts (perspective)

Today I gathered what the children already know about sound . . . 

and they know a lot!

I grouped their ideas into the four groups that came up: 

instruments, body sounds, animals sounds, things in our world

Rylan and Rielle named many instruments and animal sounds.

Oliver said he has a microphone at home that makes sound when you shake it.

Tyreese showed us two sounds he could make with his mouth

Esme knew that we listen with our ears.

Sophie knew lots of animal sounds

Here is a picture of the children playing a guessing game - can you name the sound?