Our Journey Westward » Music

Can You Hear the Sound?

Cindy — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:49:41 +0000

We finished learning about sound this week. As with the color and light part of the unit, lots of hands-on experiments and demonstrations made for fun learning. Below are some of our activities, although I didn’t get as many pictures this week for some reason.

We experimented with pitch based on the amount of air available for vibration in the jars. The more air to vibrate, the slower the sound waves move. Slower sound waves = a lower pitch.

Several activities helped us to see, hear and feel sound wave vibrations. This is the classic cup and string phone.

Sound waves can bounce off of objects or be absorbed into objects. The kids had to design various experiments to prove both facts.

Click on the graphic above to download a copy of the light, color and sound test I gave the kids.

And, finally, here’s the resource list that’s been in the sidebar. For those of you following my unit study posts, the spines for the unit turned out to be two books I checked out from the library that included wonderfully illustrated experiments with explanations that covered just about every topic I had hoped to cover. The list below includes the extras that helped me fill in when needed.

The spines were: Science For Fun: Light & Color and Hearing Sounds with Easy to Make Scientific Projects.

Light, Color and Sound

A-Z Home’s Cool Homeschooling Lessons

Heart of Wisdom Links

Links for Sound

Easy Fun School Music Study

Duke Ellington Resources

Cindy — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:12:50 +0000

We enjoyed Duke Ellington a lot! It was refreshing to hear a different style of music than we’ve been listening to so far this semester. We aren’t studying a composer in December. I’ll have resources in the sidebar again in January!

Duke Ellington

Making Music Fun – Biography and You Tube Performances

PBS Kids Biography

Books We’ll Read

CD’s We’ll Listen To

George Gershwin Composer Study

Cindy — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:48:14 +0000

I hope these resources come in handy as you plan a study of George Gershwin!

George Gershwin

Classics for Kids

Books We’ll Read

CD’s We’ll Listen To

Vivaldi Resources

Cindy — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:17:40 +0000

Vivaldi’s music and story have made for wonderful studies this month! We’re off to a more contemporary composer, George Gershwin, for the month of October.

Antonio Vivaldi

Classics for Kids

Book We Read

CD’s We Listened To

Don’t forget to sign up for the giveaway that takes place bright and early Thursday, October 1st!

Composer Study – Frederic Chopin

Cindy — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:41:28 +0000

Here’s Chopin’s sidebar info. You’ll probably see this in the sidebar next school year, too!
Frederic Chopin

Classics for Kids

Listen

Book We’ll Read

Mozart Resources

Cindy — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:32:17 +0000

We’ve just finished learning about and listening to Mozart (one of my favorites.) Next month is Chopin. You’ll find his resources in the sidebar soon.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Classics For Kids Radio Shows

Click and Play Biography

Kid’s Bio and Music

Listen to Mozart

Books We Read

Composer Richard Wagner

Cindy — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:25:45 +0000

Wagner was February’s composer. I’m making room in the sidebar for next month’s composer, Mozart.

Did you know Renoir painted a portrait of Wagner?

Classics For Kids Biography

Listen

Johann Sebastian Bach

Cindy — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:03:32 +0000

To make room for a new composer study in the sidebar, I’m transferring Bach resources into this post for future reference.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Classics For Kids

Listen to Bach

December Artist and Composer Studies

Cindy — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:22:10 +0000

Thanks to the ladies at the CM Artist Study group, I’ve found a wonderful site for various nativity scenes that we’ll use for art study this month.

Each week, we’ll observe ALL of the paintings noticing different things each time like:

realism

colors

feelings

which ones capture the reverence best, or the joy best, etc

the number of people

who is consistently in each painting and why

what style pleases them most

what style pleases them least

Since we’re working on a daily scrapbook page to go along with the Names of Jesus unit and we’re frequently crafting this month, I doubt we’ll do any additional art besides the picture study.

Our composer of the month is – who else – George Frederick Handel. And we’ll be listening to – what else -the “Messiah”.

The biography will come mostly from Classics for Kids, and I may choose an activity or two from Cindy Downes free unit.

As for the “Messiah”, here is a nice explanation of the musical story. We own the “Messiah” on CD, but you can listen to parts of it online here.