Friday 9 September 2016

Sound Inquiry

What a fantastic Inquiry this has been. There has been so much enthusiasm and excitement throughout, culminating in our Music Festival Performance. It is good to reflect on all we explored, discovered and created in coming to that point. Please come and take a closer look at our Inquiry Wall Story about our learning.  

inquiry wall.JPG

I am Curious:
Our drumming lessons with Andreas were the hook into this Inquiry. Getting to try so many different and interesting percussion instruments really sparked our thinking and curiousity into sound and music.

We explored ways we can make sound and music, not just with instruments, but with all sorts of materials. This led us to ask questions about how sound is made.

We played, observed , drew and experimented with lots of different instruments.

I am Exploring:
We explored pitch and volume in different ways. Paint a Song: These we out to help us explore making a song in a different way. The different jars played a different pitch. We could use this to paint a song, and then play each other’s songs.

Exploring different elements of music. We learnt about pitch: how high and low a sound is. We also explored beat and rhythm.


Moving to Music: we listened to a lot of different types of music. We imagined the types of animals that would move like those sounds. Sometimes the sounds were big and heavy and made us think of gorillas and elephants. Sometimes they were soft and tinkling and made us think of small animals like mice or birds.  


We looked at different types of instruments. One afternoon we looked at string instruments: ukulele and guitar. We also looked at striking instruments: like drums and triangles. Each time we looked closely to see how they made their sound.  


Sound Scapes: This is a story that you can tell through music. We looked at a symbol and thought about how we would play it or sing it. Some were to be played loudly; some softly; some high and some low.

We made soundscapes on our own, in groups and as a whole class. These explorations helped us to create the group soundscapes we made for our performances.

Research:
Learning about types of instruments and how sound is made.. We did some research on how to make sounds. With a whole lot of different materials out we experimented with how to make sounds.

We discovered that sounds can be made by:
  • Striking/ hitting
  • Blowing
  • Shaking and rubbing
  • Plucking/strumming

As we watched clips about these types of instruments we made notes by drawing and labelling them. By looking closely we could see how they made their sound; how each group of instruments was the same.

We used our knowledge about these instruments to design and create our own.

I am Sorting and Creating:

We had a fantastic morning building and creating our own instruments. This involved a lot of thinking and problem solving, sharing and turn taking. We also decorated and painted our instruments once they were done.



We explored the Garage Band App. This allowed us to experiment with different sounds and instruments. We thought about what animals would make a sound. We thought about if it would be a high or a low sound. It was fun to create music in a different way.


Creating our Performances:
We had 4 different sound groups. Each group looked at a different way to make sound: shaking, striking, blowing or strumming.

In our sound groups we brainstormed what animals and creatures would make our sound. We picked what types of animal we wuld like to be and then thought about the sound to go with it. Some of us played the instruments we had made; some of us played real instruments like the ones we had made.

We created a soundscape story to go with our sounds. After we made our group soundscape we practised playing it and then recorded it onto the  Garage Band App. This was a piece of music we used for the performance.  


We adapted costumes for our show

I am Celebrating:
After all of this learning we practised and performed our show. It was so fantastic!
We reflected on our sounds and costumes, through art, writing and lots of talking.
We share some of this reflection in assembly.

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