Sounds, high and low

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
We were investigating high and low sounds today. Teacher showed us how to make straws into whistles by snipping the tops with a scissors. She gave some of us short whistles, and some of us got long whistles. We discovered that the short whistles made high sounds, while the long whistles made low sounds. Teacher then showed us a sliding whistle that she has. We would all have liked to play the whistle, but that would not be too hygenic, so teacher showed us how it works. Just like the straws, when the whistle is short it makes a high sound, but when you slide the whistle to make it longer, the whistle sound is lower. Next we broke up into groups and were given a strong plastic container and 5 elastic bands of different colours and sizes. Teacher put the elastic bands in order from shortest to longest, then put them, still in order, on to the plastic container. She plucked each one in turn and we tried to sing the note that it made. We noticed that the shortest elastic bands made the highest sounds, and that the longest elastic bands made the lowest sounds. We had our own turn then at arranging the elastics according to size, and putting them on the plastic containers. We tried strumming the elastic bands, and singing the notes it made. In three different ways we found that short instruments (elastic bands, whistles and straws) make high sounds and that long instruments make lower sounds. We even used our maths skills by sorting from long to short to shortest and from short to longer and longest. We sorted too from low to higher to highest, and from high to lower to lowest. We really understand long, longer, longest, short, shorter, shortest and high, higher, highest, low, lower, lowest now.