FIRST GRADE l Literacy I Design Practices I Acoustic and Optical Engineering
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Lab Happenings
Essential Questions
What do engineers do? What do acoustic engineers do? What do optical engineers do?
What is sound? What is light?
What is sound? What is light?
Project Time: Sounds Like Fun! Looks like fun!
Project Work Part 2: How can we, as engineers, design an end of the year family celebration that teaches about sound and light?
Project Work Part 1: What does a Foley artist do?
Novel Engineering:
Launch:
We had a Dance Jam to observe and wonder about sound and light!
- We are planning a Sound and Light Family Dance Jam! Tuesday, June 13 9:00am! The kids have a great morning planned! There will be dancing and a ton of fun exploring our favorite sound and light centers!
- Hello, Red Fox and Color Mixing with Lightbulbs
- Mouse Paint and the Color Mixing Lab
- Transparent, Translucent, Opaque experiment: How does light interact with different materials? We made predictions and then we tested to find out!
- Blowing bubbles to explore iridescence
- How does light travel? We played Moonstruck to explore reflection!
- Shadow Time: What are shadows? Where does the light source have to be? How can you make an image bigger? Sharper?
- Building models to explain the parts and pieces of an eyeball and how it works!
Project Work Part 1: What does a Foley artist do?
- WARNING: You may never watch a movie in quite the same way again! What do Folely artists sdo? Watch this great video to find out! https://www.wired.com/2016/04/skywalker-sound-foley-art/
- So, what does it take to be a Foley Artist? We added our own soundscape to The Three Little Bears to find out!
- Using the ipads and our favorite recording app, we started to collect sounds for our tidepool story! Exhibition coming soon!
- The Longest Traveling Sound challenge: After playing "Bat and Moth" and learning about echolocation, we had a blast making our very own "whisper-ma-phones." How far can we get our whispers to go? You might be surprised!
- We also really liked this video by Bat Coservation International! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAvoz_ofoeo
- Rainbow Xylophone: We made music on jars of water. We played a variety of familiar tunes and made up our own! We also learned how to use the recording app!
- Sound Drop: Using only our ears we tried to identify what was being dropped behind the screen. Some objects were harder to identify than others. How come?
- Muffle the Jingle: What is sound proofing? Our acoustic engineers used a variety of materials to silence the jingle bells.
- Dancing Rice: How can you use sound to make rice dance? All you need is a bowl with saran wrap on top, a few grains of rice, and a drum! Try it!
- How the Ear Works: Students watched a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMXoHKwWmU8) and then made a labeled model of an ear with play dough.
Novel Engineering:
- Bremen Town Musicians- We added a crazy sound to the animal's hullabaloo to scare the robbers away! We made comb kazoos, felt the vibrations, and played a very special version of Name that Tune!
- Bear Snores On- First grade engineers worked together to design unique sound systems to wake up bear!
Launch:
We had a Dance Jam to observe and wonder about sound and light!
Ask Your Engineer
- What do acoustic engineers do?
- What is it like to be a Foley artist?
- How did you wake up bear?
- What is sound? What is volume?
- Can sound move through water? Air? Hard surfaces?
- Can you see sound?
- How can you muffle a sound?
- What are the different parts of the ear?
Engineering At Home
- Here is the link to HTeNC's new online library created by the Second Grade! There are some great engineering challenges for you to try! http://coolbooksforeverybody.weebly.com/fairytale-engineering.html
- Here is a great resource for some online engineering gaming! http://pbskids.org/games/engineering/
- Watch Bill Nye the Science Guy. He has an episode all about SOUND! You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPwl3Y7wG28
- I love the idea of setting out a building material at night with a building challenge card for the early rising engineer! You can download some great challenge cards here! http://picklebums.com/building-challenge-cards/
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Can You Help?
Folks often ask me, "How can I help?" If you are interested in supporting the Engineering Lab through donating your time or materials, please shoot me an email ([email protected]). As our projects get fleshed out, I'll also post a wish list. In the meantime, if you're looking to donate, we always need origami paper, tea sized boxes, and masking tape. LOTS AND LOTS OF MASKING TAPE. Thanks!
Can You Help?
Folks often ask me, "How can I help?" If you are interested in supporting the Engineering Lab through donating your time or materials, please shoot me an email ([email protected]). As our projects get fleshed out, I'll also post a wish list. In the meantime, if you're looking to donate, we always need origami paper, tea sized boxes, and masking tape. LOTS AND LOTS OF MASKING TAPE. Thanks!