Autahi Explores Music

One of the stories we were reading last week was all about sounds and what you could hear.  We had a go at going outside and listening as carefully as we could.  We could hear birds, cars, kids, breathing, wind and lots more.  

So we decided to explore sound and music and we were so lucky to get some parents to come into class to show us their instruments and play them for us and others who came in to help us make our own instruments.  

We got to see, hear and try the Cello and Violin.

We also got to hear the Fiddle and the Trombone.  We danced to the fiddle music.  See our movie for more on this!

We painted our own songs and then played them.  We listened to the different sounds that the glasses made. The glass with the least amount of liquid made the highest sound. 

We played each other's songs and talked about what they reminded us of.  Then we wrote about them. 

We observed the shapes of instruments and created black line drawings of them.  We talked about their size and shape and what they were made out of.  Then we painted them with dye. 

We categorised and classified instruments looking at the way they make sound.  Some instruments you strike, others you blow and others you strum or pluck.

We also got to explore making music on the computer.  We used the keyboard and made lots of different sounds.  There were storm sounds, robot sounds and even something that changed our voice!

 We made rain sticks.  We had to work out how to put them together and make sure that they didn't spill rice all over the place!

 We painted them so each of ours was different.

We had to measure the paper and make sure the circles were big enough to cover the ends of our tubes.  Then we had to cut them out and attach them.  This was tricky and there was lots of trying and retrying.  We also needed to help each other!

All week we had materials out to make our own instruments.  We made drums, shakers, violins and guitars.  We thought about how our instrument would make music.  We had to think like designers, we had to ask ourselves questions and we had to work together. We took apart old lampshades to get materials we needed. 

We were also really lucky to get some parent help to come in and show us some carpentry skills.  Some of us made string instruments by hammering nails into bit of wood and using rubber bands.  Others made guitars! It was lots of fun.  We had to think like builders and carpenters.  We had to measure, we had to carefully hammer working on our eye-hand coordination! 

Finally after making our instruments we drew pictures of them and described and explained how they make sound!

It was such a fun filled week! We will be sharing our instruments and instrument pictures in assembly!


We also used our instruments to make our own music!