Sound It Out

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES:

• Comparing Sounds
• Bead Stringing
• Making Patterns
• Sorting
• Musical Scales
• Pouring

I presented two new (and super fun!) sensorial activities to my son this morning. We're approaching the bottom of the sensorial bucket--just a smelling activity and a tasting activity left. It'll soon be time to officially start working on language development. (Reading and writing! Yay!) I say "officially start working" because my son and I have been talking about letters and their sounds for months now. For instance, I'll inquire, "How's your buh-buh-bagel, Parker?" To which he'll reply, "B! Bagel starts with B! My buh-bagel is yummy." (At which point, I'll often say something like, "I'm glad your bagel is yuh-yuh-yummy. What letter makes the 'yuh' sound?" We can go on like that for a while. I'm sure our fellow bakery patrons think we sound pretty sss-sss-silly.) Really early this very morning (and by really early, I mean predawn early), while watching a demolition derby with me on YouTube, Parker saw a front end loader with "GERRRR" painted on its bucket and casually asked, "Mommy, did you see the 'grrrrr' on that loader?" Those nine words definitely made up for having to wake up so wicked early today. Now on to learning how to read actual words (and eventually stories!), in addition to the paint on demo derby vehicles.

For the comparing sounds activity, you need an even number of containers, preferably opaque. (I only had these glass containers, so I wrapped them in paper after I took this picture.) Fill them with various household objects, making pairs, like above; I used rice, macaroni, dried beans, Parker's plastic ball beads and foam shapes (to provide a contrastingly quiet set of shakers).

In this activity, the child matches the shakers that sound the same. The point is to help the child refine his listening skills. Since the shakers all look the same, the child has to concentrate and listen carefully, as well as remember the different sounds as he tries to find their pairs.

After he finished matching all five pairs, I allowed Parker to open the "maracas" (as he called them) so that he could to check his work (and eat some crunchy pasta, of course).

I put away his ball beads a few months ago when he finally tired of bead stringing. He was so excited to see them inside the maracas today! He did some haphazard bead stringing at first, then we practiced making patterns with the beads.

I bought this container at Morrison's School Supplies, thinking it would we'd eventually find a use (or uses) for it. When I saw how much fun Parker was having with the ball beads, I broke out the container, thinking he could use it to do a little sorting.

For the musical scales activity, you need glass bottles and (colored) water. You really only need five bottles (or eight, for a full musical scale), but I wanted to start the activity with just two bottles, one empty and one full, to exemplify the difference between a "high" sound and a "low" sound.

High and low.

Then I added the half-full bottle, to demonstrate an "in-between" sound.

Then I showed Parker how to make a musical scale. He had a turn putting the bottles in order, then I showed him how we can use them to play songs like Mary Had a Little Lamb, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and Frère Jacques.

Then he spent some timing pouring, because Parker loves to pour. (I encouraged him to continue tapping the bottles as he emptied and filled them, to hear the different sounds they made. He sort of did so; mostly he was just happy to pour.)