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Toddlers experience the world through their senses. These boys listened to music played on a flute and then created their own beautiful noise. |
Do you hear what I hear? Toddlers characteristically experience the world around them through their senses. At an Ohio child development center, children 18 to 30 months explored their world through the sense of hearing and learned how to have fun making beautiful noise.
After listening and watching the children over several weeks, the teachers noticed that the toddlers perked up when they heard new sounds and that they were intentional in making sounds. One teacher noticed how the young children ran to the door at the sound of the vacuum cleaner and people's voices. Teachers soon realized they had a potential project in exploring sounds. Their observations led to creating activities and seizing opportunities that supported the children's investigations of listening, making noises, and discovering sounds.
Throughout the project, the teachers observed, experimented, and explored sounds with the toddlers. The children created ways to make sounds, differentiate sounds, and adapt sounds. They listened with curiosity and fine-tuned their listening skills. They learned how touch and movement changed their sounds. The very young preschoolers found new ways to create sounds from loud banging to soft taps, but showed a marked preference for loud banging!
Musicians visited the classroom and performed on the guitar, flute, and drum, and then they gave the toddlers an opportunity to play real musical instruments. Homemade and store-bought instruments allowed the children to practice their skills and reinforced new vocabulary. A number of found objects, like dried noodles, were used to make exciting, amazing noises.
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Creating their own noisemakers from found objects like pie plates and milk jugs helped the children experience noise in new ways. |
Mini-investigations occurred frequently. The children tapped rhythm sticks on varied surfaces and then dipped them in paint to create vivid images. One boy dropped keys that clinked behind a door, which led to his discovering how to retrieve them, practicing the sequence of events numerous times, and showing others the trick. The children created their own noisemakers; pie plates and milk jugs became marvelous instruments. And they read and listened to books about sounds.
To explore some of the outside noises that the children heard, the teachers took the children on field trips around the center. To conclude the project, the teachers put together a book that included each child and featured particular sound words so the toddlers could revisit their investigations. This helped the children share their newfound knowledge and experiences with their families.
The toddlers' activities naturally flowed from their interest in sound, and the topic worked well with the Ohio Infant/Toddler Program Guidelines. The toddlers learned new sound vocabulary from visitors and books. Their investigations led to critical thinking and problem solving. Scientific content was naturally embedded in exploring and making sound.