February 23rd, 2022

The Sounds of Our Footsteps

 In our initial sound explorations around the school, Ford expressed an interest in knowing how the different floors sound under his feet. He quickly made note that the floor of the balcony sounded different from the floor of the greeting hallway remarking “that one (the balcony floor) is squeaking”. To test his theory and explore the sounds underfoot, we’ve spent time this week walking around different parts of the school and recording and drawing the sounds our footsteps made. In small groups, children had a chance at both making and recording the sound of their steps. Afterwards each child had the option to choose small, medium or large paper for capturing the sound through drawing.

Yesterday, Ford and Fay kicked off our research exploring the balcony and the atrium, both areas of Ford’s initial observations.  Ford recorded the sound of Fay’s footsteps and then they offered their observations while drawing.

​Ford: No. The sound was in my foot. I can only draw this. It was a big sound.
Fay: I made a lion sound. I want green. It is a whale. It goes chomp, chomp (describing her drawing).

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Then they moved to the greeting hallways, and explored their footsteps on the main staircase.

​Ford: It make a different sound (clapping his hand on the floor). No gold and then I mixed yellow. It’s tiny little (the sound) I make a tiny, tiny little (sound)
Fay: I think gray and green. This medium paper. It’s little. 
Ford: It’s the sound of these steps. It goes down, down, down (describing his second drawing).

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Ford's drawings of the footsteps on the balcony and main steps. 

Fay's drawings of the footsteps on the balcony and main steps. 

Charlton and Bailee were next to experiment with the noises and they chose to return to the balcony and the greeting hallway. For both of them, walking up and down the stairs was particularly exciting and both captured it in their drawings.

Charlton: Going down the steps. These are the steps. This is Bailee and me and you (Karen). This is Karen.
Bailee: I’m recording the sound. I’m recording the sound. 
Charlton: Bailee’s walking with me. I think it’s a red sound.

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Bailee's (above) and Charlton's (right) drawing of the footsteps on the balcony floor. 

Today Win, Isabelle and Mimi gave the exploration a try, but this time they experimented with their steps outside by the front door and inside on Blake Hall’s tiled floors.

Outside Win requested to be the recorder and Isabelle and Mimi made all kinds of sounds with their feet. First they recorded sitting and stepping on the ground and then Isabelle thought it would be fun to record their footsteps while running up and down the ramp in the front of the building. 

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When it was time to draw  Mimi chose a large sheet of paper, Isabelle a medium sheet and Win a small sheet. 

Mimi: It sounds like marching
Win: I want to push the red button (recording button)
Isabelle: It’s stomping, it’s stomping. I’m gonna draw it again, come on sounds. 
Mimi: Like marching, I’m drawing an igloo, a pink shiny igloo. The marching makes the igloo happy.

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When we went inside,  we tried the same marching and stomping and again, Win chose to record the sounds. 
Isabelle: I’m drawing a mermaid. 
Mimi: Mermaids have tails, but they don’t have feet. 
Isabelle: Look, look it’s the stomping, the people! K, I’m going to try the stomping again. Mimi, do this?
Mimi: No, im drawing. 
Isabelle: Mimi do you want to try this? Yes, or no?
Mimi: OK 

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Win's (above) and Isabelle's (below) reflections on the sound of footsteps on brick

Mimi's igloo

Tomorrow we will continue documenting our footsteps in different areas of the school, and begin a discussion about what we could do to change the sounds our feet make on different surfaces. We're so excited to see where this work will take us!