February 01st, 2022

2/1/2022

Exploring sound in different ways

... talking to experts

Lucas: I’m so excited to learn about it!
Hugh: I think it’s something that you put on your heart to hear it.
Wilder: Sam, do you know something weird? The visitor’s name is called Sam!

We welcomed another expert to St. John's; our Brown Room teacher, Elena's partner, Sam Varney. Sam is currently a Medical student at Georgetown University and was excited to share more about the human heart with us. He brought a digital stethoscope, which is a medical tool that can amplify and record the sounds it detects. This way we were able to experience the sounds of the body collectively as a class. The children had many curious questions for Sam, about his stethoscope and the heart. Thank you for joining us, Sam!

Hugh: Stethoscope!
Sam V: It has different parts.
Hugh: Put it in your ears.
Wilder: And the other part is for put it on your body.
Finlay: Put it on here (tapping his belly). On your belly and check your heart and hear how fast it’s beating.
Sam V: Yes, you can hear how it’s beating, your blood going through.
Wilder: Yours has a lot of ends.
Sam V: This is a special one. It has different listening ends. We call them diaphragms.
Michael: And these are the bones (pointing to his arm)
Wilder: Does one of the holes test your bones? Does one of the holes test your neck to hear your bone pump?
Sam V: It can also listen to your lungs and breathing.

Finlay: How does the beat get into someone’s body?
Hugh: Your heart.
Sam V.:What we hear is your heart opening and closing. So there’s two sounds that you hear.

Wilder: It’s going up and down and closing.
Michael: That’s a tapping thing (bottom of stethoscope, diaphragm?)
Luke: I can hear someone talking in your belly.
Finlay: The lungs talk. The lungs help you talk.

Sam V: You hear the blood going through. Like a waterfall makes sound, right? So that’s what you’re listening to.
Daniel: It’s not a waterfall.
Wilder: It’s like bood water inside your body.
Ines: Yes, your blood is going through your blood vessels, like rushing through it.
Wilder: Like rushing water.

Did you know your heart is about as big as your fist?

... through drawing

Using stethoscopes in the classroom, the children listened to their own or a friend's heart beat and began sharing their observations and drawing comparisons to objects. Initially children were inclined to use a metaphor to describe the sound and then created representations by drawing them.

What do you hear?
What does it sound like?

Rocks and water crashing together - Lucas
A cactus and water - Cape
A popping sound like a bubble. Pop, pop, pop. - Michael
A rock fall, like going down rocks going into a waterfall - Finlay
A beetles opens a jaw. Opens and opens and opens and closes - Luke
A sloth (walking) - Finlay
A crab running very fast - Saul

Saul

It sounds like a block stacking on something. - Saul

It's a truck crushing marbles. Crush, crush, crush, crush. - Saul

A crab running very fast. - Saul

Cate

Like big rocks tumbling over. - Cate

It feels like cement. I feel they have marks on them. They're very tiny. I nee to do very tiny ones (marks on her drawing). They feel bumpy an cold. - Cate, observing, inspecting and describing the rocks

Michael

Sound like cricket. - Michael

Michael associated the sound of the beating heart with bubbles popping.
"Pop, pop, pop."
He visualized the sound by opening and closing his hand.

Wilder

It sounds like waves. - Wilder

This is calm water (bottom line). And these are where the waves are (wavy line across the center). Here's the rocks falling in (top) and that the bumpy water. The waves and the rocks crashing together makes the sound. - Wilder

While we focused on metaphors and representational drawing in our first exploration, we shifted our focus to a more abstract approach, focusing on the sound itself and the sensation.

How can we draw the sound itself?

Cate, Lucas and Remy each drew the sound they were hearing in different ways - rhythmic splatters, repetitive swirls, short parallel lines or layered wavy lines.

Happy Chinese New Year!

We were excited to celebrate Lunar New Year together again today! Welcome to the year of the TIGER!
Thank you for Michael's mom, Diana, for reading a wonderful story about how the Chinese Zodiac signs (The Great Race: Story of the Chinese Zodiac by Christopher Corr) and to Michael for sharing special red envelopes and Chinese yo-yos. And thank you to Remy for bringing in fortune cookies for everyone and the book Bringing in the NEW YEAR by Grace Lin!

You have to crack it open and then there's a message inside. Read it! - Remy