A Week Full of Science!

This week has been a very Science centric week. On Monday, we had the pleasure of joining a workshop led by “Sam the Sound Man”. We began with all of the children in 4NL, where he took us on a journey through sound, focusing primarily on how sounds are made and how they travel to our ears. The children were keen to engage by sharing their knoweldge and answering questions posed by Sam.

In the second half of the day, Sam worked with each class individually to demonstrate how to make a wide range of instriments from different items that you might have lying around. He also taught us crucial skills that we would need such as how to find the node on different materials and how to alter the pitch of a sound. At some point this term, the children will be putting this knowledge to use to create their own instruments (once we have a date confirmed for this, we will share it with you) so if you have any “junk materials” lying around, it might be a good idea to start collecting them. Of particular interest are the following items:

• planks of wood
• thick cardboard tubes
• pvc piping
• nails
• plastic straws
• cloths (such as dusters or similar items)
• string
• thick sticks or similar wooden items (e.g. broken broom handles)
• large tin cans
• elastic bands
• bouncy balls
• copper pipes
• cardboard boxes
• plastic bottles
• fishing line
• pencils that are too short to write with

In our Science lessons, we carried out a variety of investigations to test whether the statement “Something has to move for a sound to be made” was true or false. The children all worked really well in their groups and made some fantastic observations. There were even some great challenges from children who thought of things that made sounds but did not necessarily display physical signs of movement, such as a person or a speaker! In the end however, we decided that all sounds were caused by vibrations and that those same vibrations were also how we are able to hear the sounds being made.

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Miss Levett, Mrs Sykes and Mr Nehaul