The Science of SOUND!

Our last type of energy we talked about in science was sound! 

Monday, we watched our sound BrainPOP and talked about what sound is and how it is made. We even talked about volume, pitch, sound waves and felt how different pitches and volumes made our vocal chords vibrate!

Wednesday (we skipped Tuesday because it was Veteran's Day) we did a sound lab in our science journals. The kids cut out and glued window flapped papers into their science journals (which is not an easy thing to do, I was impressed!) and we played a Guess That Sound game.

I put a folder up and had 8 different objects behind it. One at a time I dropped an object and the kids had to try and guess which object made the sound. They put their guess on the front window flap. Once we did all of the sounds we went back and I told them the answers. They put the right answers inside the window flap. They had the best reactions when they found out they guessed right!

 Every time I would drop an object I would say "OK ... don't move." And the kids started running to the middle of the room and making goofy poses without moving. Have I mentioned how much these kiddos crack me up??

Thursday was ... INSTRUMENT DAY!!! I brought my acoustic guitar, bass guitar and keyboard from home and we looked at how they each make sound. Once we talked about the different volumes and pitches they could make, I let the kids come up one at a time and strum a bass guitar string to see it vibrate.

We may have some future musicians in our class!


To recap our lesson, and make sure everyone knew what sound energy was and where it comes from, the kids drew 3 pictures of examples of sound energy. We agreed on 1 example and did it together on the board.

Keyboard, scream, dog

keyboard, drum, guitar

keyboard, scream, dog

keyboard, scream, turkey

End of the year science experiments!

At the beginning of this six weeks I promised the kids that if we got all of our stuff done of the end of school that we needed to, we would do different science experiments after being finished. They worked SO hard this six weeks so with school coming to an end, we are doing different science experiments in class! 

Monday's experiment: Making a balloon inflate without a person blowing air into it!

I gave each group an empty water bottle and a balloon. I came around and we used a funnel to put baking soda in each balloon and vinegar in the bottom of the empty water bottle.

First the balloons had to be stretched a little.

One person held the balloon and funnel while another poured baking soda into the funnel to get it into the balloon.

Next, one person held the funnel in the empty water bottle while I poured vinegar into it.

We carefully put the balloon around the lid of the water bottle without getting baking soda into it and then ...

We poured the baking soda in and watched the magic happen!

Tuesday we got ready for Graduation, Wednesday we HAD graduation, Thursday we got ready for Relay Recess and Friday we HAD Relay Recess ... so just one super cool experiment this week!