National curriculum content

• Identify how sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating.
• Recognise that vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear.
• Find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the object that produced it.
• Find patterns between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations that produced it.
• Recognise that sounds get fainter as the distance from the sound source increases.

Lesson objectives

• Identify how sounds are made.
• Explain how vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear.
• Find patterns between the pitch of a sound and objects that produce it.
• Explore patterns between volume and the strength of vibrations.
• Recognise that sounds get fainter, as the distance from the sound source increases.
• Investigate how sounds can be reduced.

What we want children to know

• That sounds are produced from vibrations.
• That vibrations travel through the air.
• That within our ears the ear drum vibrates and turns vibrations into signals to the brains.
• The bigger the vibration the louder the sound.
• Pitch refers to how high or low a sound is.
• Frequency is the number of vibrations per second.

What skills we want children to develop

• To identify the difference between pitch and frequency.
• To change the pitch of a sound.
• To change the frequency of a sound.
• To make links between sound and vibration.
• Use scientific evidence to support their reasoning.

Vocabulary

Pitch, sound source, vibration, volume.