Hearing & Sound in Action

National Music Centre

This week in our Hearing & Sound unit, we took our learning on the road for some experiential learning. Our class visited the outstanding National Music Centre in downtown Calgary for the day on Thursday.

Plugged-in Instruments

At the National Music Centre, we learned about timbre, pronounced "tam-ber", explored the vibrations that music made, learned how to make trumpets, and discovered that different lengths of tubing make different pitches. We also learned that in brass instruments, it is the player's lips that vibrate to make the sound, while for wind instruments, it is the reed that vibrates. We made and brought home "sound sandwiches," a kind of harmonica.

We explored all the floors of the Centre and were able to experience a variety of ways in which sound makes us feel, how movement occurs, and we created sound waves that we could see! High pitch notes oscillate sharply and frequently; lower pitch notes oscillate more smoothly and in more spread out patterns.

For this week, we also:

* watched the morning Kindergarten students in their dress rehearsal of their concert

* rehearsed our performance of "The Old Gingerbread House" for our Dec. 12 presentation

* continued with math and literacy centers

* worked more on place value

* enjoyed the snow!

This coming week, we will be packaging up the donations to families in need for Christmas gift bags. Thank you so much for all your care in sending in donations. If you missed the Friday deadline, we can still accept donations if they are in Monday morning. The class will be decorating the bags on Monday for a cheery gift-giving for the families.

Christmas Presentation of "The Old Gingerbread House"

We will be having two opportunities for you to see your child in our performance: Wednesday afternoon at 1 pm and Wednesday night at 6:30 pm (Doors open at 6:15). Please note that there are only 2 tickets available per family. If you would like your name to be added to a waitlist for more possible tickets, please contact the main office.

We look forward to seeing you there!