Year 2: Sound
This list consists of lesson plans, activities and video clips to support the teaching of sound at Year Two. It contains tips on using the resources, suggestions for further use and background subject knowledge. Possible misconceptions are highlighted so that teachers may plan lessons to facilitate correct conceptual understanding. Designed to support the new curriculum programme of study it aims to cover many of the requirements for knowledge and understanding and working scientifically. The statutory requirements are that children are taught to:
• identify how sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating
• recognise that vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear
• find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the object that produced it
• find patterns between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations that produced it
• recognise that sounds get fainter as the distance from the sound source increases.
Visit the primary science webpage to access all lists: www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk/primaryscience
Listening to Sounds
This short video is a lovely little clip to show at the start of a lesson on observing and naming sources of sound. Try asking children to close their eyes and then identify the sounds.This encourages children to think about their auditory surroundings. The sounds include: a doorbell, car horn, opening a can of drink, sawing a log, drilling a hole and cracking walnuts.
Have fun at the end identifying the 10 mystery sounds in a listening quiz!
This could be further developed by asking children in groups to create their own sounds from around school, record them and play them back for the class to guess what they are.
Nocturnal Animals (Age 5 to 7)
Children listen to sound recordings of different animals and try to match the sounds to the images of animals on the worksheet provided. Ask children have their eyes shut to encourage them to rely solely on their sense of hearing to identify the sounds.
Assembly on Sound
Carrying out a class survey on sounds is a great way of working scientifically to find out about the world. Try out the ideas on page 4.
Another idea is to play some different sounds and talk about children's favourite sounds. Choose six then ask the class to vote on them and to create a living bar chart with children as the bars, showing which is the most popular. This could be repeated for the least favourite sound. This is a good way of representing data without having to write it down.
Linking to music - children could listen to various instruments and decide which ones they prefer. Discuss higher and lower pitch sounds and ask children in groups to expore the instruments and order them from low to high.
Describing Sounds
This starter shows the emotional responses to various sounds. A sound is played by a professor and his assistant holds up a sad, smiley or neutral face.
It could lead to a discussion about why they like certain sounds and the feelings sounds can create in people. This could be followed by a lesson where children create sounds for each other and show their responses.
Sound clip
A short clip of an alarm bell ringing. It shows that when standing close to the alarm it seems quite loud. As you move away from the clock the alarm sounds quieter. This helps show that the distance from the source of a sound will affect how loud it seems. Children could investigate different sources of sound and see how far away they can go and still be able to hear it. They could then compare the sources to see which creates the loudest sound.
Children could work in pairs with one child whispering a word and the other with their back to them repeats the word. Repeat after moving one step away from the child who whispered the word. See how far away they can get and still hear the word. This could lead into a discussion about how we can talk to people who aren't close to us and the use of telephones.
Explore, Discover, Inspire: Practical Work in Primary Science
The lesson idea on pages 15 -16 on the pdf uses a story 'Peace at Last' to introduce a problem for the children to solve. Children identify loud and quiet sounds and then investigate ways to stop sounds from entering their ears. This provides an opportunity for children to carry out a simple investigation with some independence.
