Inquiring About Music: Our Sound Exploration Area

Before I show you our finished project, here is a quick rundown on the process leading up to it!  You can see the process in more detail at:

http://mrsmyerskindergarten.blogspot.com/2014/03/inquiring-about-music-introduction.html,
http://mrsmyerskindergarten.blogspot.com/2014/04/inquiring-about-music-investigation.html,
http://mrsmyerskindergarten.blogspot.com/2014/04/inquiring-about-music-investigation_20.html, 

and http://mrsmyerskindergarten.blogspot.com/2014/04/inquiring-about-music-project-part-1.html.

Our driving question was "How can we create an area for students at the ECC to explore sound?"  We started out exploring materials and instruments and came up with 5 ways to make sound: blowing, striking, rubbing, shaking, and strumming/plucking.  They organized their data and formed expert groups for each way to produce sound. Each group investigated their way of making sound, created instruments to show how they created sound in that way and presented to the rest of our class. They created a map of our playground and figured out the best place to put a sound area.  They created a list of materials we could use for our sound area.  We realized we needed money to buy the materials so we created class poetry books and sold them to our parents. We made $60.00!  I went out and gathered materials. The rest is our latest adventure with this project. 

They tested out materials we could use.  

My husband took their plans and created a music wall based on their ideas. 

I brought it to our class and we tested it out for a week, documenting what we noticed about it!  They took this exploring very seriously! Here are some of the comments we heard as they explored!

"When you hold it, it makes a quieter sound than when you don't hold it."

"It can't vibrate when you hold it!"

"When you hold it up here it makes a different sound than when you hold it down here."

"You can feel the vibrations!"

"If you rub this with a stick it is loud, but if you rub it with your hand, it is quiet."

"The small pot has a high pitch.  The next one has a low pitch.  The biggest pot has the lowest pitch."

They were verbalizing everything from our science standards about sound!  It showed how much they had learned from our investigation. They loved knowing why it all worked the way it did!  

They created a sign. 

Finally, after a week of testing it out, Mr. Myers and I came in on Saturday and installed it on our playground in the area they decided on. 

I cannot wait for them to see it on Monday!  Our next step is to create a video explaining this area to show to the other classes in our school. 

This has been a very long inquiry and project!  I am so proud of these kids and the 21st Century Skills (problem solving, collaboration, persistence, etc.), math skills, reading skills, writing skills and research skills they used in order for us to get to this point of creating this finished product.  Because of them, the ECC now has an area for students to explore sound!