SOUND-- SCIENCE CLUB WEEK 4     

      

WHAT CAUSES SOUND?

  How do we and other animals produce sound? What about music, machinery, TV, etc. What causes the variations in sound? These are the questions I asked the group. Most of the Kids knew that vibrations cause sound and they had a voice box in their throats.  Our first experiment was our sound. I had each child put their fingers on their throats to feel the vibrations. We whispered, we shouted, we sung, and we talked to feel the difference in the vibrations.  The next question was why did we have different voices if we all had the same voice box and vibrations in our throat.  That was answered when we began our experiments.

1. Using a tunning fork at you use by hitting objects and putting the fork to your ear. Everything you hit has a different sound.

 

 

 

  

 2. Sound produced by different glass cocktail glasses. Some thin antique ones gave off a beautiful melodic sound and some heavier ones had a flat sound. We experimented hitting the glasses with wood, and metal utensils to produce different sounds. Then we added water to the glasses to try to make musical sounds.

 

 

3. I have a singing quartz bowl which is large and heavy. The ohm sound is made by taking a brass rod that is covered with suede material and rubbed around the top side of the bowl.  The sound gets louder and louder as you rub.

 

4 .My cousin had a ukulele which she played and showed how to tune by tightening the strings. She showed how the sound differed by the width of the strings and how she placed her fingers.  Then the kids all tried to make music. She also showed different wind instruments and how she blew into them and had to change her breath from light blowing to stronger blowing into the instruments to change the vibrations that made the sound.  I also had different sized native drums that the kids could hit to make different sounds and we explained about the different vibrations by hitting harder and softer.

5 .Singing Balloons- I had a bag of different size balloons and different size hex nuts. Each child picked the balloon and hex nut they wanted. We put the nuts in the balloon and blew it up and I tied the ends.  Then I had the children shake the balloon and listen to the sounds—it actually sounded like music.  We compared the different sounds the different sized balloons and the different sized nuts made. The kids were so excited that they wanted to try a few balloons each.  Then they asked to take one home to their siblings.

 

 

          

Scavanger hunt- I took every one outside to look for anything they could find to make music. Some used sticks, rocks, cans, buckets, and a couple of things in the yard I hadn’t thought of. One of the girls found my pitch fork and took a stick and hit each prong to make different sounds, and one kid thought of using my shovel.  They really got creative-my metal patio table was an instrument with a metal spoon hitting it.  As usual the children went beyond my expectations with their creativity.

7. Making our own string instrument-I had a box of different size wood pieces-some rectangular, some long and thin, etc.  I gave the kids a box of thin wood nails and different size and width rubber bands.  I thought they would just line the nails and strings like the ukulele to play music with—again they out smarted me.  Some of the kids not only went in one direction with the rubber bands, but others went across the original bands and added more than one for different sounds.

8. Cup and string phone- I had them make a string phone by putting a hole in the cups tie a paper clip to a long string and put the string thru the hole in the cup. Put the other end of the string into the other cup hole and tie it to another paper clip.  The paper clips are only to hold the string in the cup. Give the cups  to two children, have them pull the string tight and on child talks into the cup while the other one holds the cup to his ear. Than have them switch with the other child talking and the other holding the cup to his ear.

 

 Hands on experiments helps the kids learn concepts while having fun. Actually touching, seeing, and feeling these concepts makes a lasting impression while just reading about these same facts sometimes goes over their heads and out of the minds. They will always remember how they made their own instruments, how they were able to make the music with the glasses, and how the difference in the weight, length, and tightness can cause the differences in sounds, and it was a fun and painless experience.