Light & Sound
/In March, the Otters studied light and sound. We learned that light and sound travel in waves. We explored this concept in several ways throughout the unit. We began with light exploration. We first defined the words transparent and opaque to describe the amount of light that can pass through an object. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with our attempts to experiment outdoors with natural light and shadows. Our shadow experiment was confined to our cubby area with shadow puppets that we created and a small flashlight. We found that the shadows got bigger when our puppets were close to the light source and smaller when they were further away. We also discovered it was fun to create stories that we could narrate as our shadow puppets acted them out.
As we moved on to sound waves, we explored vibrations as a way to feel sound. We also examined frequency and amplitude to explain the pitch and volume that we hear when a sound is produced. We created different ways to feel and hear sound waves including kazoos and cup phones. On the last day of the unit Mr. Sam brought in his electric guitars and we all got a chance to play them. We could feel the sound wave vibrations by standing near an amp (or amplifier). Many of us have now included Rock Star on our list of things we'd like to be one day.
