- plastic containers with lids (food storage containers, yogurt containers, plastic eggs)
- small objects (dried beans, beads, paper clips, cotton balls, buttons, rubber bands, packing peanuts)
- tubes and hoses (cardboard and plastic)
- predict
- same
- sound
MA Standards:
Language/L.PK.MA.6: Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, listening to books read aloud, activities, and play.
MA Draft STE Standards:
Physical Sciences/Matter and Its Interactions/PS1.A: Describe, compare, sort and classify objects based on observable physical characteristics, uses, and whether it is manufactured as part of their classroom play and investigations of the natural and human-made world.
Physical Sciences/Matter and Its Interactions/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.
Approaches to Learning/Initiative and Curiosity: Demonstrates flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness in approaching tasks and activities.
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:
Mathematics/Patterns and Relations 7: Explore and describe a wide variety of concrete objects by their attributes.
Mathematics/Patterns and Relations 8: Sort, categorize, or classify objects by more than one attribute.
Mathematics/Patterns and Relations 9: Recognize, describe, reproduce, extend, create, and compare repeating patterns of concrete materials.
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): Mystery Shakers
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
STEM Key Concepts: Sounds have a source; Different objects make different sounds; Sounds vary in three ways: volume, pitch, and timbre
ELA Focus Skills: Speaking and Listening, Vocabulary
Educator Prep: Make two identical shakers and include them in the group of shakers from yesterday.
Display the materials for children. Ask,
- Do you think you can tell what is inside a shaker just by listening to the sound? How would you know? Have children shake the containers.
- Say, Can you find two shakers that have the same sound? Why do you think two shakers will have the same sound?
Have children make a shaker that makes the same sound as the pair of identical shakers they found. Ask, How do you think you can make a shaker that has the same sound as these two shakers?
Give children time to explore the materials and respond. Ask questions such as,
- Why do you think your materials made the same sound, but it is a quieter sound? How do you think you can make the sound louder?
- Do you think the number of objects in the tube will make a difference in the sound the objects make? Why do you think that?
- How many objects do you think are in each of the matching shakers? What kind of sound do they make?
Finally, have children create their own pairs of matching shakers. Mix them up and put them in one large group. Challenge children to find the matching pairs in the group.