Lesson 1: What Are Vibrations

I will pose our guiding question and ask students to think about how a hummingbird makes sound. We will revisit this question throughout the unit. I will then explain our focus of the day: thinking about how sound affects things. Students will conduct an experiment and finish the sentence “Sound makes things _____.” To investigate the answer students will conduct an experiment with a partner. They will get a cup with a hole, a piece of tin foil, and some rice. They will then take the tin foil and put it on the cup, and talk into the hole while watching the rice move. Students will be in pairs so one will watch and take notes, while the other uses the cup. Then they will switch. We will then come back as a group and I will take ideas on what sound did to the rice. I will ask the students to share their observations. Once they observe that sound makes things move, I will provide them with the word vibration and define it for them.

Lesson 2: What Do Vibrations Look Like

This lesson will show students what a vibration is by making an instrument with rubber bands and cups. Students will choose different sized rubber bands and put them around cups to have them vibrate. Students will answer the question what happens when the rubber band vibrates? I want them to have a visual representation of a vibration so they have a deeper understanding of what they’re learning about.

Lesson 3: Making Kazoos

Students will make kazoos with popsicle sticks and straws, to observe vibrations in a real life application. They will need to figure out how the kazoo is making sound. Students will also get to take their kazoo home and show their families something they made in science.

Lesson 4: Exploring Sound Waves

This lesson will teach students about how sound travels. They have learned that sound is made by vibrations. Now they will experiment talking with and without a “telephone” (made of cups and string) to see which is louder. Students will try to follow the scientific process by first making a prediction, then performing the experiment and reflecting on their hypothesis. They will work in pairs to do this. At the end of the lesson we will come back to the rug and discuss our findings.

Lesson 5: Revisiting Sound Waves Through Solids and Air

For our last science lesson in the unit I want to revisit the lesson I taught last and reinforce the concept that sound travels best through a solid and not the air. I want my students to begin to understand that this is true, even if it seems like it may not be. I will have them all sit at their seats and scratch their desks. I will ask them to quietly listen. Then I’ll ask them to put their ears to the desk and scratch again. They will hear that the sound next to their ear was louder. I think this will help them understand even though they had doubts before.