Our Homeschool Diary: Let's Make Sound!

Keeping Them Engaged

If there is one thing that is very challenging in homeschooling little kids, for me it is keeping their interest in a certain topic or activity. That is also why we most of the time use play-based learning in my hopes to get them more involved and that there would be retention of the topic we are trying to learn.

This week, we studied about Sounds. Well, it is fairly easy - we make and hear sounds all the time, don't we? That is also why it got more challenging trying to keep their attention and not bore them in the process.

So we talked about loud sounds, soft sounds - what makes them, how to take care of our ears, etc. We also talked about vibrations and movements, how these make sounds. Notice the vibrations on our throat when we speak? Do you see guitar strings vibrate when we strum it? How about the ripples on the water when we tap it?

Eventually, the grew tired bored of it, so we have to think of other activities. Oh, actually, it was Little Miss who thought about this activity.

First, she collected some bottles and jars. She planned to put rice on them, then shake them. Yess! That's sound. So remember that colored rice we used for sensory play before? She still has them, kept in an air-tight food container. So we just kept the rice where they were.

Then I suggested she just add water of different levels to her bottles then we started tapping on them using a fork. I let her observe which water level makes the higher or lower pitch sounds. The bottles with more water had lower pitch sound, the ones with lesser water had higher pitch sound. She also got curious how they would sound differently if there were caps on the jar, or without.

Eventually, it bored her already. Her brothers joined in and they took their musical instrument toys and made different music.

They played the xylophone, guitar, and drums! Boy, it was "noisy!" haha.

So we also got to compare which made lower or higher pitch sounds. The longer bars had lower pitch sounds than the shorter bars of the xylophone. The same was the same with the guitar - thicker strings have a lower pitch than the thin strings.

Kids are naturally inquisitive, one question Little Miss also asked, was "why girls sound different than boys?" Well, kids, that is your assignment for tomorrow! LOL.

_{Read: Your Changing Voice}

Tin Telephone

One of their favorite thing to play with is the "tin telephone" which they recently made. They go to opposite ends of the room and "sends messages" using their thin telephone.

We also had the same activity a couple of years back, you'll see below how we made this little project.

	Having Fun with String Telephones : A Science Activity

Whew! We survived the week! Other interesting lessons were about money and measurements. It gets more challenging, my creativity and resourcefulness as a teacher/facilitator is tested. I can say the same for my patience, too! Oh dear. Nonetheless, in times when I face humps, I just try to remember why we started this homeschooling journey in the first place, i.e., to be more involved in their learning, and make it a more enriching experience for them and hone them to be the best they can be!