- chart paper
- markers
- plastic containers with lids (for example, food storage containers, yogurt containers, plastic eggs)
- small objects (dried beans, beads, paper clips, cotton balls, buttons, packing peanuts)
- tubes and hoses (cardboard and plastic)
- listen
- loud
- loudest
- predict
- soft
- softest
- sound
MA Standards:
Speaking and Listening/SL.PK.MA.1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners during daily routines and play.
Language/L.PK.MA.1: Demonstrate use of oral language in informal everyday activities.
MA Draft STE Standards:
Physical Sciences/Matter and Its Interactions/PS4.B: Apply their understanding in their play of how to change volume and pitch of some sounds.
Head Start Outcomes:
Language Development/Receptive Language: Attends to language during conversations, songs, stories, or other learning experiences.
Language Development/Expressive Language: Uses language to express ideas and needs.
Logic and Reasoning/Reasoning and Problem Solving: Seeks multiple solutions to a question, task, or problem.
Logic and Reasoning/Reasoning and Problem Solving Recognizes cause and effect relationships.
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): More 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
Display the materials for children. Ask three volunteers to help you demonstrate how to use the materials.
- Give each child a container. Have them choose one small object to put inside their container.
- Ask children, Which of the three objects do you predict will make the loudest sound? Why do you think that?
- Help children securely cover their containers. Have them take turns shaking each one. Say, Let’s listen closely to each sound. Which object makes the the loudest sound?
- Ask, Did the object you predicted make the loudest sound? Were you surprised by which object made the loudest sound? Why?
Have children work in small groups. Allow them to freely explore making loud and soft sounds.
- Encourage them to make predictions before shaking their objects.
- Have them record their predictions by dictating, writing, or drawing.
As children explore, be available to ask and answer questions and engage with them. You might want to encourage them to predict outcomes, to discuss different sounds made by different materials, and to compare the loud and soft sounds.
Reflect and Share
Have children bring a shaker to the circle. Encourage children to share what they have learned about sounds. Have children demonstrate their observations with the shakers. Then sing a song with children; say, Let’s use our shakers to make loud and quiet sounds as we sing the song “Shake, Shake, Shake.”
Shake, Shake, Shake
Shake, shake, shake
Wiggle like a snake. (wiggle your body)
Shake, shake, shake,
Jump in the lake (jump up)
Shake, shake, shake,
Make a cake (pretend to mix cake batter in a bowl)
Shake, shake, shake,
Take a break! (stop and sit)