Can You Hear Me Now?

This afternoon, we did our own version of "sound science". It was very fun, and successfully demonstrated many of the concepts we have learned. Children rotated through 3 stations, and made straw kazoos (changing the pitch of their kazoo by snipping bits off their straw), a xylophone using 8 glass jars and water (and then challenged to play Mary Had a Little Lamb), and a string telephone (learning that the string needed to be taut so the vibrations could travel).

At home, you can extend this learning. For the string telephone, I wonder what would happen if empty soup cans were used instead of paper cups? What if two different sized cups were used? What is the farthest distance you can get with a string and still be heard? For the xylophone, would different liquids act differently than water? What songs could you learn if you used more glass jars?

All three of these ideas came from here. Zoom is a fantastic television show, and this is a wonderful website. Enjoy!