DIY Water Xylophone!
I went into this activity without any expectations. We simply followed our curiosity and tried making different sounds with a variety of glasses and amounts of water. Here's how our sound exploration went:
- First, we compared glass and plastic cups to see which ones would create better sounds.
- After determining that glass cups sound better, we set off to build a water xylophone. I don't own a ton of matching glasses, so we used glass cups of varying sizes.
- My preschooler LOVES rainbows and food coloring. So of course, we had to drop food coloring into each glass to make everything look pretty!
- Then, we poured random amounts of water into each glass. (Again, I just let him lead the exploration. He loved purple, so we poured a LOT of water into our purple glass.)
- Then, we compared the sounds made by large and small spoons and forks. (He liked the fork the best!)
- Then went through and I asked him to tap adjacent glasses to see which glass had higher and lower pitches. Then, we arranged them from highest to lowest pitch.
- And then we looked at two similar glasses and talked about how water level affected pitch.
- Then, we went bonkers and tapped all the glasses. Once he was done with the activity, we poured the water into our water table for some water play afterwards.
In today's post we explored our sense of sound. It's the final post in our super fun collaborative 5 week Summer STEAM CAMP SERIES. Previously, we explored our Sense of Taste, Sense of Touch, and Sense of Sight. (I missed the sense of smell week due to illness!)
If you're looking for other great ways to explore sound with your kids, check out these awesome posts below!
- Modern Art Steady Hand Game | Left Brain Craft Brain
- Pop Rocks Science Exploring Viscosity | Little Bins for Little Hands
- Twirling Buzzing Noise Maker | What Do We do all DY
- How to Learn from a Failed Experiment | One Time Through
- Salt Vibrations: Sound you can See! | Frugal Fun 4 Boys
- DIY Voice Pipes | Babble Dabble Do
Happy exploring, friends!