The Beat Goes On

Activity Overview

Exploring the world through sound is a wonderful way to make new connections to familiar things and places. Auditory stimulation helps the body understand the surrounding world, but for young children, auditory experiences can also be challenging as they are linking sounds and experiences with their constantly growing vocabulary. By allowing the children to explore sounds in their own way, they have more autonomy in their learning. There will be two parts to this activity – an indoor walk and an outdoor walk.

What You Need

• A variety of drumsticks: chopsticks, pencils, sticks, metal or wooden spoons, plastic spatulas

• Your walking shoes and coat

• A way to record your sounds (through a phone or other device). This is not required but can be a fun addition to remember and review which tools made which sounds, as well as a way to capture the music you make

• A clipboard and pencil to document your experience through mark-making and drawing (optional)

Steps

1. Take your drum sticks and other utensils and start to explore your neighborhood and home. We recommend beginning at home and working from room to room in order to test as many sounds as you can in a comfortable environment.

2. Prompt your student with questions about how objects sound when they are tapped, what surprises them and what they can predict.

3. In these moments, really try and help your student expand their knowledge about sound by encouraging them to tap things in multiple ways. For example, a mug sounds different if you tap the inside, the outside, or the handle. A park bench will sound different if you tap the seat, the armrest or the legs.

Guiding Questions

• How does that object sound when you tap it with the spoon (stick, spatula)?

• Does it sound like anything else we have tested?

• Can you move your sticks in different ways to make different sounds?

• How does it feel to make light taps? or hard taps?

• Can you make sound patterns?

• Can we tap this object in a different way and make a different sound?

• How do we make soft sounds? Light sounds? Hard sounds?

Extensions

• Write a log of what the student hit and their description of what the sounds were like. What was your favorite?

• Different materials lead to different sounds - how can you get creative with this?

• If you record the sounds, replay them with the student and try to recall each sound.

• Can you think of any ways to go on a sound scavenger hunt? What would that be like?