- Preschool/Pre-K
What's That Sound?
Learning Areas:
- Music
- Science
- ECSEL
Overview
What is this activity?
ECSEL Standards
What skills are being enhanced? What knowledge is gained?
Materials
What do you need to prepare for this activity?
Instructions
Step by step guide
ECSEL Prompts
What questions can you ask to promote ECSEL thinking and discussions?
Extended Learning
How can you extend children’s thinking?
Overview
Can you guess what makes that sound? Guide children to use their listening skills and make predictions during this fun sensory activity.
ECSEL Standards & Learning Goals
What skills are being enhanced & what knowledge is being gained through this activity?
Emotional Identification
Children will be able to identify their feelings throughout the activity, with adult support if needed.
Cause & Effect
Children will be able to connect feelings to a cause.
Empathy & Prosocial Skills
Children will be able to practice prosocial skills including listening and communication with others.
Problem Solving
Children will be able to express emotions and feelings when given a visual prompt (Our Emotions Cards).
CASEL Standards
Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, Responsible Decision-Making
Materials
- Various musical instruments or items that make different sounds (whatever you have available)
- Box with a lid
Instructions:
- Prepare for this activity by placing all of the instruments and/or objects that you plan to use in the box with the lid on so children cannot see the different items.
- Bring the box to your meeting area, and gather children together to introduce the activity.
- Tell children we are going to be playing a game where we can only use our sense of sound, meaning we can only use our ears to listen.
- Tell them that they will need to turn around and close their eyes, and you will take out one of the items and make some noise. Once they hear the sound, they will need to make a prediction, or use their listening skills to guess what could be making the sound.
- Have children turn around and close their eyes — no peeking!
- Make some noise with the first item, and have children make their predictions. You can have everyone make their own guess, or ask a few volunteers to share and see if the rest of the class agrees.
- Once the predictions are made, have the children turn around to see if their predictions were correct!
- Repeat with the rest of the items.
ECSEL Prompts
ECSEL Prompts are helpful questions & guiding statements you can use to provoke children’s thinking about emotions. These prompts are related to this specific activity.
I can see a big smile on your face! Was your prediction correct? Are you feeling proud?
I can see that you are frowning and have your arms crossed. Are you feeling disappointed about not making the right prediction? That’s okay, we can always try again!
I can tell everyone is ready to listen because you all have your eyes closed and no one is talking. Great job, everyone!
How did it make you feel to only use your ears to listen, and not your other senses?
Which sound did you like the best? How did that sound make you feel? What was it about that sound that made you feel this way?
Listen to the first sound. What kind of object/instrument do you think makes this kind of sound?
Are we not sure? Let’s listen one more time and think about it together. Did the object make a shaky sound or a smooth sound? Was it loud or quiet? Does it sound like music, or something else?
Extended Learning
Use these questions & ideas to extend children’s learning!
Extend this activity in different ways to focus on the other senses: sight, touch, smell, taste. Include making predictions part of each activity to strengthen scientific inquiry and critical thinking skills.
Follow up with a conversation about how different people learn in different ways. Some people can only use certain senses, so they use different strategies to learn and navigate the world.
