- containers with lids (plastic)
- recording device (optional)
- small objects (for example, dried beans, beads, paper clips, cotton balls, packing peanuts)
- tubes and hoses (cardboard and plastic)
- listen
- loud
- louder
- predict
- quiet
- shake
- soft
- softer
- sound
MA Standards:
Speaking and Listening/SL.PK.MA.1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners during daily routines and play.
MA Draft Standards:
Physical Sciences/Energy PS4.A: Investigate different sounds made by different objects and different materials and reason about what is making the sounds. [Cause and Effect]
Head Start Outcomes:
Logic and Reasoning/Reasoning and Problem Solving: Recognizes cause and effect relationships.
Logic and Reasoning/Reasoning and Problem Solving: Classifies, compares, and contrasts objects, events, and experiences.
Science Knowledge/Scientific Skills and Method: Uses senses and tools, including technology, to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Language 2: Participate actively in discussions, listen to the ideas of others, and ask and answer relevant questions.
Science and Technology/Living Things and Their Environment 15: Use their senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste to explore their environment using sensory vocabulary.
Explore Together (indoors): Shake and Listen
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
STEM Key Concepts: Different objects make different sounds; An action has to happen to make a sound; A sound becomes louder when the force of the action that is creating the sound is increased; A sound becomes softer, or quieter, when the force is decreased
ELA Focus Skills: Speaking and Listening, Vocabulary
Introduce the materials to children. Explain to children that they will be using the materials to make shakers, and then they will explore making sounds with the shakers.
Think aloud as you model making sounds with the materials, directing children’s focus to listening to the different sounds the materials can produce. For example, say,
- If I put some beans in this container and shake it, I wonder if it will make a loud sound or a quiet sound. Shake and listen to the shaker to demonstrate.
- Then ask, What do you predict will happen to the sound if I add more beans to the container? Do you predict it will make a louder sound or a softer sound?
- What about these other kinds of beans? What sound do you predict these beans would make?
You may want to jot down children’s predictions to return to after children explore the materials freely.
Invite children to select materials and explore making sounds. Encourage them to make predictions before they make sounds. You may need to prompt them to shake the container very gently, making quiet sounds, or to shake it vigorously, making loud sounds. Encourage children to listen closely to the sounds they create and to describe the sounds.
- It sounded like . . .
- It’s a . . . sound.
- I think the sound is . . .
Prompt children to record their explorations. Ask questions such as,
- What do you think you can you do to make the sound louder?
- How is that sound different from the quiet sound Anthony is making?
Reflect and Share
Discuss children’s previous predictions and play back some of their recordings. Ask children to talk about the sounds they made. Encourage them to describe the sounds, compare the sounds, and think about which materials made the sounds.