LESSON 1 - WHAT CAN YOU HEAR?

Lesson: Sight is the most dominant sense in most humans. When our vision is limited, our other senses can gain dominance and become stronger.

Directions: Have students sit quietly in the room with their eyes closed. Have them listen for subtle sounds in the classroom and the surrounding area. What can they hear? Discuss why closing your eyes helps you to hear better.

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LESSON 2 - WHAT KIND OF SOUNDS ARE THERE?

Lesson: The four basic sounds are high, low, loud, soft

Materials: gong drumstick

Directions: Bang on the gong and listen for all four sounds. Have each child say his/her name high, low, loud, soft. Change the order of the sounds so that the children realize that they can come in different orders or combinations.

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LESSON 3 - AMPLIFYING SOUNDS

Lesson: Soft sounds can be made louder by bouncing them off of different items. Placing a music box on hard surfaces, such as walls, tables, floors, etc., will make the sound louder. Soft surfaces, such as carpet, absorb sound making it softer.

Materials: wind up music box hard and soft surfaces cardboard box with hole

Directions: Place music box on outside of a cardboard box with a hole cut in it, and the sound is amplified (sounds bounce around inside the box and come out focused through the hole). Ask kids to think of musical instruments that are basically big boxes with holes (Violin, guitar, piano, etc.).

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LESSON 4 - ARE THERE SOUNDS WE CAN'T HEAR?

Lesson: Discuss communication in bats, whales, dolphins, et.c

Materials: dog whistle

Directions: We can actually hear some of the sounds emitted from a dog whistle, but others are too high for us to register. Experiment by blowing different tones into the dog whistle. Some students may be able to hear a higher range than others.

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LESSON 5 - HOW SOUNDS ARE MADE...

Lesson: Sound makes molecules of air vibrate (wiggle), which causes each air molecule to knock against the next until the sound travels in wave-like ripples like you would see in a pond. These sound waves travel through the air and are collected by the outer ear. It will be helpful at this point to discuss the anatomy of the ear.

Materials: gong signs
giant model of ear

Directions: Have ten children line up shoulder to shoulder between the gong and the giant ear model. The child nearest the gong has a sign saying SOUND, the child nearest the ear has a sign which says HEAR. The remaining eight children in between have signs saying AIR. When the gong is struck the first child wiggles back and forth, the next child wiggles when he/she feels the first child, and so on down the line. The last child holds up the HEAR sign as they feel the wiggle of the child next to them.

Discuss the concept of the voice box (vocal cord wiggle). Have children make high sounds. They can feel the upper part of their vocal cord wiggles by putting their fingers on their throats. Now have children make low sounds which will wiggle the vocal cords further down in the throat.

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LESSON 6 - HOW SOUNDS GET WHERE THEY ARE GOING

Materials: tuning forks ping pong balls glued to pieces of string

Directions: Have kids play with tuning forks. They should hold the fork by the "stem" and tap sharply on their shoe. By placing the fork stem on various surfaces in the room, sounds can be amplified or muffled. If the stem of the vibrating fork is placed on elbow and index finger of hand is inserted in ear, the sound can be heard through the BONES! (This explains why our voice on a tape recorder doesn't sound right to us. We can hear our own voices through our bones and ears.)

After a few minutes of playing, hand out ping pong balls on string. By dangling the ball next to the vibrating fork so that it is gently tapped, one can see the "wiggle" of the vibrating fork transmitted to the ping pong ball.

The final activity after class is to take the children out into the hall and have them lean one ear against a long metal hand railing. Place the music box at one end of the rail and have the children listen. Even the last child at the end of the hall will hear music through the metal rail!

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LESSON 7 - SALT VOICEPRINTS

Lesson: When you sing a note, the vibrations of your vocal cords cause the surrounding air to vibrate. This exercise is very effective in showing this principle.

Materials: empty coffee can
elastic band
salt
large balloon

Directions: Cut off the end of the balloon about 2 inches down from the nozzle. Stretch the balloon over the open end of the coffee can and fasten it with an elastic band. Don't be frustrated if it takes a couple of tries. Sprinkle some salt on top of the balloon covered can. Without actually blowing on the salt, have the students "sing" at the can. Start with low notes and slowly raise the pitch of the sound until the salt starts to bounce around on the balloon. Observe the pattern of the moving salt. You can also have the whole class sing the same song together, while keeping their mouths close to the can.

What happens if they change the pitch? What happens if they change the volume of the sound?

When you sing, the vibrations of your vocal cords cause the surrounding air to vibrate, which, in turn, causes the stretched balloon to vibrate. There are certain notes that will cause the balloon to vibrate more than others. These notes are called the resonant frequencies of the balloon.

When the balloon is vibrating, there will be parts of the balloon that vibrate quite strongly and some that will not vibrate at all. These areas are called nodes. The salt will tend to collect on the nodes.

Note: Please be aware that this activity can get fairly noisy and slightly messy.

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LESSON 8 - SOUND SCAVENGER HUNT

You can go on a sound scavenger hunt at school or at home. Different students might come up with various answers to each of these questions, and you can encourage discussion about their differences in opinion.

Try to find a different sound for each answer.

1. Find a musical sound.

2. Find the loudest sound you can.

3. Find a sound that makes you feel relaxed and calm and sleepy.

4. Find a sound that makes you feel like moving a lot.

5. Find a sound that makes you feel happy (or sad , scared, excited, etc.).

As a group, you might want to discuss the sounds you found in a quiet place.

Were there any sounds where the group agreed completely? Which ones?

Which question led to the greatest amount of variety and discussion of answers? Where did you hear the greatest number of different sounds. Where did you hear the least number? Why? Can you come up with any other categories of sound to find?

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LESSON 9 - WHY TWO EARS?

Lesson: Two ears enable us to more effectively locate the source of a sound. Because human ears are located on the sides of our heads, we can easily distinguish the direction of sounds that come from our right or left. If a sound is coming from your left, it means that your left ear hears the sound slightly sooner than your right ear. If a sound comes from directly in front of you (or from behind you), then the sound hits both ears at the same time and is more difficult to locate.

Materials: One clicker

Directions: Show the clicker to the class and make a few sounds with it so that the students can recognize it. Have all of the students sit in a circle with one student in the middle (Student A) with his/her eyes closed.

Have the students in the circle pass around the clicker. Signal silently (by tapping them on the head or by pointing) to one student (Student B) when you want him/her to make a sound. That student should click twice.

Student A should point in the direction of the sound. Once Student A has pointed, Student B clicks twice more, giving Student A another chance to find the source of the sound. Have Student A open his/her eyes to determine the actual location of the clicker.

Student B then goes into the center of the circle and Student A takes his/her place in the circle. Continue the activity for as many students as you would like, varying the location of the clicker relative to Student A (sides, back, front).

The students may notice that when the sound is coming from either right or left of Student A, s/he can point to the location of the clicker fairly easily. However, when the sound comes from either directly in front of or directly behind student A, it is more difficult to identify the location.